Spiritual Guidance for Healing and Wholeness http://trinitypartnersgroup.com/blog.php http://trinitypartnersgroup.com/blog.php?entry=28
This year has not gotten any easier for many of us. We most likely all know someone - a friend, neighbor, spouse or perhaps our self - who has seen their job or home disappear. With real unemployment hovering around 15% it has been a year marked by pain for many. For others this may be a season for real rejoicing. An illness has been defeated, a marriage saved, a child grows into a good man or a good women.

For Peter and me it has been a year of transition. Peter celebrates his first year of High School as he enters the height of his teenage years. For me it has been a time to grieve and rejoice as I see him become a man. Grieve because our life together is changing in many ways even as I see amazing things from him giving us many reasons to rejoice. Over music we create individually or together, games we play, things we see, trips we have taken or life we embraced. Especially this year for the life of my cousin Mark whom we buried and a chance to spend a week with my Aunt Marge, my brother Paul and his wife Cathy in Napa.

We feel so blessed by all that life has shared with us this year. Especially our friends, family and loved ones who have given texture and rhythm to our lives. We are so deeply grateful for your presence in our life. Our simple prayer for you I put I the words of the Psalmist, "Indeed you love truth in the heart, then in the secret of our hearts teach us wisdom." (Ps 51:8) May you know wisdom and all the riches she has to give.

Unfortunately for many this was still a year marked by pain and loss. After much prayer and discussion, again this year Peter and I have decided to honor you in much the same way we did in the last. Rather then sending our money, our prayers and love abroad this year we have instead decided to help the Kingdom come by feeding a hungry world hear at home. First we have given, in your name, a contribution to:

* Hunger Action Center (www.hungeractioncenter.org) who help so many across our land feed those who are hungry and thirsty.

Lastly we are having trees - hungry for CO2 - planted in your name to help our planet stay whole and cool. So we have given financial support to:

* American Forests (www.americanforests.org) who plants a tree for every dollar we contribute. A visit to their website will provide you with information on where the trees are being planted including in Minnesota, Georgia and Michigan.

We conclude our letter to you this year with a second simple prayer, this time from the Prophet Isaiah. Enjoy Advent and Christmas our most Holy Seasons!

"Let justice descend, O heavens, like dew from above, like gentle rain let the skies drop it down. Let the earth open and salvation bud forth; let justice also spring up!" (Isaiah 45:8)

Shalom, Hesed and Merry Christmas!!

Peter & Jeff]]> http://trinitypartnersgroup.com/blog.php?entry=27
Somewhere along the way we decided to convert the forests that used to cover our living and working spaces into huge expanses of lawn dotted with a few small, mostly nonnative trees. So far we have planted over 62,500 square miles - some 40 million acres - in lawn. Each weekend we mow an area eight times the size of New Jersey to within an inch of the soil and then congratulate ourselves on a job well done." (Douglas Tallamy, A Call for Backyard Biodiversity, American Forest, August 2009; p. 25)

How can we begin to put a price tag on the damage to our planet and ourselves that cheap gas has wrought? I suspect it is incalculable. Our carefree ability to live at a distance for each other and burn vast amounts of fossil fuels that pollute the planet and destroy the creation put into our hands to protect and defend. We have been given dominion over the earth as guardian not destroyer. Yet thanks to cheap gas we have almost unlimited ability to bring as much destructive force to our world as we choose. So my prayer this month is for $10 / gallon gas to begin, and I mean begin, giving us a taste of our own medicine.

What would $10 per gallon gas look like to the typical citizen? What would it do to American society built on the automobile and cheap gas? Let me offer some suggestions.

* Living 50 miles one way from work would become prohibitively expense for all but the most well heeled. Assuming you car got 25 mpg and you only drove back and forth from work 100 miles per day would cost a person $200 at the pump each week or more than $10,000 per year.
* Making multiple trips to the store for groceries or other items could quickly double the cost by adding another 100 miles per week.
* A cross-country trip - no detours allowed - would cost between $2,400 to $3,000 just on gas for the trip.

It does not take much time with a calculator to realize how life changing for the typical American $10 for gas would be. Undoubtedly it would hurt the poor the hardest giving them little choices but human-powered devices like shoes or a bike. Imagine what this might do to our way of life.

* Jobs would have to be either at home or close to home.
* Communities would have to be built closer together so that we could provide what we need to survive without having to travel to get it.
* We would live closer to each other.
* We could no longer afford large wasteful homes with lots of empty space that require large quantities of energy to heat or cool.
* If we wanted to be close to family we would have to live near our families.
* We would need to be connected. We would know we need each other.

In that vain I share some words from Matthew Fox:

"We even have to let go of God to re-enter into a celebrative experience of God. "I pray God to rid me of God" confessed Meister Eckhart. We dance before God as David did when we also let go of God. Do we also pray God to rid us of a ladder God, a theistic God, a childish God, a perfectionist God, an all-American, nationalistic God, a capitalist ("in God we trust" on the dollar bills) God, a skyscraper, up-in-the ultimate letting go that will be all of ours: the letting go of life. The occasion of our death is an occasion for letting go of many, may precious and beautiful experiences: sunsets and friends, music and learning, cooking and conversation, relatives and birds' singing. And, of course, life as we know it. Surely much of the resistance to discussing and understanding death in our culture stems from our compulsive clinging to what we imagine we have or possess, in this case to life. But the truth is that we do not possess life or any of these true gifts of life. They are loaned to us, not given us. Even our so-called private property will belong to someone else upon our death. Possession as possessiveness is a lie, a damnable lie that condemns us to a hell of isolation and cling even before our deaths. Death then is a very really letting go. We practice for it - and for the surprises it contains - by leering to let go well before death. Which is identical to learning to live before death. And to taste eternal life before death. (Matthew Fox, A Spirituality Named Compassion, p. 92)

The upsides to $10 / gallon gas are real and would, I believe, go a long way to creating a better human community where interaction is required to survive. Perhaps, just perhaps, my little 35 person home neighborhood might get out of their car long enough to greet a neighbor. I pray we are all that lucky.]]> http://trinitypartnersgroup.com/blog.php?entry=26
He has shown the strength of his arm, He has scattered the proud in their conceit.He has cast down the mighty from their thrones, And has lifted up the lowly. He has filled the hungry with good things, And the rich he has sent away empty. (Luke 1:49-51)

Interesting thing about God she or he is more than willing and capable of twisting our preconceptions. For in the mouth of a girl, Mary after all was just a girl; the Evangelist puts these amazing words. Words that are easy to tune out or ignore. Or better yet give some silly allegorical meaning to explain away their significance making them apply everywhere except in my life. So we sit comfortably in our favorite pew, meeting a self-imposed weekly obligation, looking the other way, always the other way.

"Treat others as you would want to be treated." Perhaps less confrontational than Mary's words, but no less demanding is the "Golden Rule". Every world religion has some version of this "rule". Put someone other than you/me in the center of life. Having an "other-centered" life is hard to do in the best of times and perhaps impossible in situations of plenty. I just do not understand how we American's can sit in luxury - wasteful and excessive - and watch 75% of the planet live in squalor. How is this living an "other-centered" existence? How is this practicing the disciple of the "Golden Rule"?

"Its' money that matters" sings Randy Newman as he points out that it is the one item by which we measure all things. In our comfortable little world here in the United States we have created an economic system, an economic lifestyle we call Capitalism. We sing the praises to the god of money and ignore the words of the prophets and children that call us to austerity. This idolatry is the sin of our times.

Take a moment and look at the financial and economic mess created by the great capitalists on Wall Street and Pennsylvania Avenue. Who was protected throughout this crisis created by the Masters of the Universe? (Main Street is not innocent in this mess. My prior comments about my generation and others about the financial crisis are applicable here too.) In a system that is supposed to reward and punish those who take risks, ours apparently only punishes those who are vulnerable and convenient who have no real voice or power unlike the privileged.

Even as I write these comments I cannot help but think of reports I heard on Market Place today about whether or not our appetite for reform, in light of the crisis created by the Masters of the Universe has dissipated. Pushed mightily by contributions from once set of Masters to the other Masters of the Planet on Pennsylvania Avenue. One year ago we stood on the precipice of financial chaos and today we wonder if any real reform will come from this. Because the bankers and the masterminds of Wall Street continue to believe they have a right, an obligation, to collect morally reprehensible salaries and bonuses.

I have been trying to construct what I think is an adequate definition for capitalism in light of our recent collective experience. The best I seem capable of, at least for the moment is this:

Capitalism - an economic and political system designed to concentrate and sustain wealth and power in the hands of a privileged class.

How is Capitalism a political system? It is political in so far as the privileged need their protectors. And while both political parties in this county are busy protecting them, one group seems to have its' raison d'etre completely enmeshed in this political and economic system as they work tirelessly to build and keep the elite happy and secure, while the other one just seems completely inapt and incapable of making any meaningful change. This while the poor and vulnerable continue to face job loss, bankruptcy, sickness, and foreclosure.

I do believe that our times are calling out for a new way. A way like that expressed by the Prophet Isaiah.

"All you who are thirsty, come to the water! You who have no money, Come, receive grain and eat; Come, without paying and without cost, Drink wine and milk! Why spend your money for what is not bread; your wages for what fails to satisfy?" (Isaiah 55: 1-4)

May we thirst no longer.]]> http://trinitypartnersgroup.com/blog.php?entry=25
Jon Forman and Switchfoot have given my generation an anthem of its' own. The song is called "American Dream". The chorus goes:

"When success is equated with excess / The ambition for excess wrecks us / As the top of the mind becomes the bottom line / When success is equated with excess."

Though Mr. Forman is from another generation he still seems to have capture the spirit of my generation as well as anyone including the songwriters of the Baby Boom generation.

When historians looks back at this, my generation, the one born between 1946 and 1964, what will they say? What are were our grand accomplishments? What memorable things did we set in place for future generations? When I think about my uncle, whom I never had the good fortune to meet because he died in 1955 before my birth from injuries received in the Second World War. He brings to mind all the conversation today about a generation called "The Greatest". Literally saving the world from a horror to great to imagine. What will be the words history uses to describe mine? I look back over 50 plus years of life and wonder what mark I, no we, have made.

Certainly many will point to Vietnam and the Civil Rights movement, but I'm not sure how we take credit for this. The Civil Rights Movement had been building for years prior to our generational journey beginning. Those who most influenced it where not a part of my generation but pre-date us. Then there was Vietnam and the whole experience of the 60's. I hear nostalgic friends and colleagues alike, talk about the Sixty's with great fondness and warmth. There is no question as research into war shows that it was utterly pointless and wasteful. Even the architect of the war, Robert McNamara admitted prior to his death that the war was just plain wrong. Those that served returned to a land that did not appreciate what sacrifices they made because so many at home stood rightly against it. Thus heaping even more pain on to the backs of those wounded and broken that least needed it.

Many who did not serve, found the 60's experience of openness and social flexibility to be a time of great experimentation. For those from tiny Midwest cities like me watching from the "outside" saw it just as a chance to experience "free" love with lots of experimentation with chemical substances and little by way of personal responsibility. It was a confusing mess to me.

So I sit here today journaling my thoughts, my lamentation, about this time, this place, this generation. Words like selfish, self-absorbed, unrepentant, narcissistic, addicted, materialistic, unhappy and broken come immediately to mind. We sit on the precipice of financial collapse and borrow away our children's future. We hang our collect heads between our legs and dash away when forced to face our sin as we watch our world being rapidly destroyed by our wants. As long as I can drive what I want, have what I want, do what I want, it simply does not seem to matter what the impact on the rest of humanity. I go periodically to church and I think about the words of Paul as he encourages to transform our word by transforming our mind and I sadly walk to the parking lot where I see choice after choice that embraces the values of our culture and society and not those of the "Word made Flesh".

I cannot just point a finger without looking in the mirror. My choice has been for some time to leave as small a footprint as I can. I enjoy the benefits of living in a place that is awash in wealth while simultaneously be repulsed by it. I just cannot sit quietly and watch my fellow brothers and sisters of my generation make the choices they do without making a statement of my own. So this begins that statement. I'll make more over the next few weeks. It is time to stand for something other than success being equated with excess.]]> http://trinitypartnersgroup.com/blog.php?entry=23
In a world of the instantaneous, the immediate, the here and now we seem to not even have noticed. Something terribly important has been lost. The qualities of which I speak are words, a few simple words. May these words, no experiences rest in peace:

Thoughtful: characterized by careful reasoned thinking

Consideration: a matter weighed or taken into account when formulating an opinion or plan

Reasonable: being in accordance with reason; not extreme or excessive

Left behind for matters trivial. Rather than embracing the likes of our dead companions we have a new lexicon for our age. A lexicon that screams NOW! It has to happen NOW, because it is so important. I take a call in the car when I know it distracts me. I vomit out words in a web site and expect others to take them as gospel. We present something called "news" when everyone knows it is just opinion and often filled with vitriol. Speed is of the essence. In all things from investments, to love and to wisdom we expect, no we demand that it is ours, instantly. Just look at the items that more and more of us chose over our dead friends:

Twitter: Twitter is a service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing?

Instant messaging is a form of real-time communication between two or more people based on typed text. The text is conveyed via devices connected over a network such as the Internet.

Electronic mail, often abbreviated as email or email is any method of creating, transmitting, or storing primarily text-based human communications with digital communications systems.

A blog is a type of website, usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video.

In many ways it is wonderful to see the 1st amendment flourish at a time we need it more than ever. Now if only we could share it with more kindness, thoughtfulness and consideration.]]> http://trinitypartnersgroup.com/blog.php?entry=22
Before I grapple with how I dream of making this a world that values compassion in ways it does not today, I want to exercise the demon of my anger. I know I have said it in past postings, but I believe it bears repeating, how fast we fall. It has been not only with breath taking speed but in totality that our brave new world has fallen apart. It has crumble under the weight of its' own idolatry as rapidly as communism or maybe even faster. There is a great deal of pain in our world today and it is growing exponentially daily, which leads me to accountability or the lack thereof.

I understand my role in this event. I contributed to this each time I bought something. I realize that each time I buy something it means someone else does not have access to it. Because I can others cannot. So little do we, this country known as the United States and perhaps the entire Western world, understand how utterly connected we are. When I have it means someone else goes without. So when I see the wastefulness, the pursuit for short-term gain and the want, want, want of a generation of people it only sickens me more. My generation - the baby boomers, will be forever remembered as a self-absorbed, wasteful, selfish, frightened, empty and completely undeserving. I don't believe this has even begun to sink in on us.

When will we begin to understand that consumerism, and the fact that to be a true patriot means I embrace it completely, is soulless and empty? It is a thrust for something that is completely meaningless. "Why spend your money on things that fail to satisfy." Unfortunately it spills over to everything political and economic. I'm outraged at what seems to me a completely empty leadership. The leaders of business and politics that lead us into this catastrophe continue to provide the same bankrupt thinking. Those that where in charge of AIG, CitiBank, Fanny Mae and the rest continue to be in charge as we shovel money, mine, my children's and my grandchildren's - without ever asking the question why. They are just so much more important, to big, to let fail. They have FAILED, when do we accept this and hold people accountable and move on rather than oversee the largest transfer of wealth in human history. These institutions have done NOTHING to deserve this. I'm indignant at what we have done and continue to do. I know there are a growing number of people who are at the same point. Then there is our "leadership" in Washington who at one of the most critical juncture in our history fights, point fingers and squabble while people everywhere get crushed by this mess. There are over 100 million people on this planet in crushing poverty and our "leaders" continue to fiddle as the world burns. This is the source of my anger, we are so wasteful. A moment in history that calls for greatness and rather than listening to our higher angels it is business as usual.

I will not end this with anger. I have said what I need to say at this time. I sincerely hope and pray for awakening, conversion, forgiveness, patience and compassion to finally reign. I work for the kingdom to come, ON earth as it is IN heaven.]]> http://trinitypartnersgroup.com/blog.php?entry=21
The time is right for a spiritual awaking in a land that is lost. It is as if each of us searching for answers, for something to fill the HUGE whole at the center of our collective heart, chasing the dream for the next best thing. What is it that brings real happiness? We seem to think that it is the new 50 inch HDTV, or the new car or whatever is popular at the moment. Perhaps it is the big bonus, the chance to own a home with no skin in the game. We have all been touched because we have all contributed. We have collectively push this wall down. What an amazing opportunity to discover what makes us whole.

I have suffered from chronic depression much of my life. I used to think that the opposite of depression - once I "got better" - would be happiness. But it is not. Rather it is a genuine sense of emotional flexibility. It hurts, a lot if you seek to be whole. This is a moment in time that calls, no demands this level of reflection. Since we have all contributed to the pushing over of the house of cards, we each get a chance to ponder our role in the effort.

I believe it is time for a new currency. Our salvation, our reclamation, or resurrection will not come from a stimulus package, adding yet more debt to burden our children with, but sacrifice and conversion. A conversion, that to be efficacious, must reach into every aspect of a person's life, into the very the pit, the bowels of your and my existence.

What is this new currency? Is it the Euro or perhaps a strong dollar? No it has nothing to do with money, but it does have to do with what we value. I suggest that rather than paying for things that have NO meaning, we instead embrace the "things" that do. Matthew Fox call this new currency compassion.

"Compassion leads to works. Feeding, clothing, sheltering, setting free, giving drink, visiting, burying, educating, counseling, admonishing, bearing wrongs, forgiving, comforting, praying: all these acts of mercy are acts indeed. Though they come from the heart and to the heart, they are not restricted to sentiment or heartfelt emotions, however powerful. They all involve other people which is to say they are political activities." (A Spirituality Named Compassion, Matthew Fox, p.14)

Jon Meacham in a recent edition of Time Magazine uses slightly different terminology.

"The moral reply is that some things are more important than power - love and freedom among them. That the security of such virtues often requires the use of force is an inescapable element of reality, but there is a distinction between the pursuit of power for domination and subjugation and the use of power to make possible the journey toward what Winston Churchill called the "broad, sunlit uplands."(The Story of Power, Time Magazine, December 29, 2008 edition, Jon Meacham, p. 35)

We can decide. It does not have to be what each of us has become accustomed to. We can begin to place real value on things the bind us together rather than keep us apart. I pray daily for conversation. For a heart filled with love, that spills over to decisions that are no longer based in satisfaction but values.]]> http://trinitypartnersgroup.com/blog.php?entry=20
To a kid in the 60's we looked like a generation that was going to be something bright and wonderful, ushering in one major social change after another. From greater integration in schools and society to a loosening of social norms, it looked as if a new world was dawning. Everything seemed almost magical from putting a man on the moon to having thousands of women go off to school and the workplace to the inspiring words of Martin Luther King Jr. The 60's were a romantic, historic time, bigger than life, forever marked by the spirit of Camelot infused by the presence of JFK.

It appeared to me as if children; particularly teenagers were growing up free to do whatever they wanted. Whether it was long hair, or "free" love, or the use of a wide and varied collection of pharmacological options, we seemed free to try most anything. All this happening at a time when children were also being sent to Vietnam to die, while others rioted in many of our major metropolitan cities looking to be free of the weight of prejudice prevalent in the land for so long.

How were we to know the stage this was setting for the next 50 years? Things that I took for granted as a child growing up in small town America soon began to rapidly change. I remember summers of uninterrupted bliss. With little responsibility expect for emptying garbage at my Grandfather's store. We were expected "to just go outside and play". We would spend entire days lost in the woods, or at a friend's, or on the ball diamond or in the State Park. Never was I or any one else, concerned about our safety. There was no pressure to improve my batting, fielding or pitching performance to make a travel team or nights of panic as I awaited the return of my SAT scores. These are creations of my generation and a burden we place squarely on the back of our children. One burden of many we have given them, along with a crushing, unspeakable debt used to finance and fuel our ever-expanding appetites.

What are the memorable contributions of our generation to ourselves, our children, our country, our planet? They include things like these.

1. The world-wide expansion of the bogey man. A bogey man so large that he can no longer fit under our beds. He controls the entire world. And we must live our lives in fear of the beast. To protect us we feed another beast just to keep him at bay. No expense is spared to keep us "safe". What good does it profit a person to gain everything and lose his/her life?
2. Creation of a new bigger beast to combat terror. An unspeakable terror that we are all expected to embrace. So we throw, without thought, billions of dollars in the hope that we can keep terror in check.
3. We created artificial catastrophes just to provide an excuse to transfer wealth from those with little to modest means to those in positions of power and affluence. Whether it is a meaningless war that has destroyed the lives of many, pick your race, religion or way of life, or a financial crisis created and directed by people in power to cling to power. "He did not deem equality with God something to be grasped at, rather he emptied himself and took the form of a slave." (Philippians 2:6)
4. Thanks to the heightened suspicions the "War on Terror" has curtailed our freedom. Be it the Patriot Act, Patriotism is, after all, the last refuge of the scoundrel, or "Raptor" for eavesdropping on citizens we live in a world marred by the growing ugliness of suspicion and mistrust.
5. We push our children like they are professionals, focusing on 1 sport or activity to the exclusion of everything else so that they get ahead. They have to have a coach to help to make sure that they can compete at a higher level. Competition breeds suspicion. "For the demonic power of competition is such that it so isolates the ego and defines it so narrowly in relation to striving with another ego that all hope of sharing something deeper than ego, whether that be joy or pain, is lost." (A Spirituality Named Compassion, Matthew Fox, p. 70) It does not stop at sports it is in test scores, academics or whatever other activity we focus our attention to.

What has driven us to such heights of self-deprivation? What are we so afraid of? If we can possess everything than we have life under control, a compulsion we seem incapable of leaving in the hands of the Neanderthal. "In a compulsive framework, love will tend toward dominance-submission relations, tending toward sado-masochism, while a compassionate understanding would perceive love as a free choice of equals who treat on another as ends in themselves. Under compulsion, mental health becomes defined as egoism. Prosperity is a sign of health and sex is a necessary evil. In contrast, under compassion, mental health means the health person considers others as well as herself or himself. Creativity is a sign of health and sex would be one example of creative interchange in general." (A Spirituality Named Compassion, Matthew Fox, p. 78)

Today we see one of the fruits from the roots we sowed in the 60's. Perhaps Governor of Illinois, Rod Blagojevich, encapsulates best the spirit and values of a generation. Everything is for sale. In the immortal words of Randy Newman, "It's money that matters." So single-minded has my generation become that it has come to embody the words of Newman. Whether it was a Senate seat, or insider information, or poor accounting practices or being part of the largest migration of financial resources from the poor into the hands of the few rich and powerful, our generation seems to have loved it.

There are those in our generation not attracted to power, or fame, or things but are instead searching for higher angels. I pray that each of us finds one.]]> http://trinitypartnersgroup.com/blog.php?entry=19
It has been a tumultuous year for our country and our planet and many of us personally. Events have unfolded that are good, bad and everything in between. So this leads, Peter and I to sing out with joy, in full voice this sacred season of Advent:

"O come, O come, Emmanuel
And ransom captive Israel
That mourns in lonely exile here
Until the Son of God appear
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel."

Unfortunately for many people this will be a year marked by pain and loss. Whether it was a lightened 401(k), a home worth less I paid for, or a job that has been lost. Even our planet is in greater peril today then last we celebrated this amazing event. More than ever we watch and work for the Kingdom to come on earth as it is in heaven. A kingdom described so beautifully by the prophet, Isaiah.

"Then the wolf shall be a guest of the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; the calf and the young lion shall browse together, with a little child to guide them. The cow and the bear shall be neighbors, together their young shall rest; the lion shall eat hay like the ox. The baby shall play by the cobras den, and the child lay his hand on the adders lair. There shall be no harm or ruin on all my holy mountain; for the earth shall be filled with knowledge of the Lord, as water covers the sea. (Isaiah 11: 6 to 9)"

After much prayer and thought Peter and I have decided to honor you differently this year. With many of us feeling financially lighter charitable contributions are way off, even while the need is on the rise. With that in mind we have decided to help the Kingdom come by feeding a hungry world. First we have given, in your name, contributions to:

1. Doctors without Boarders, who help so many across the world who are hungry and thirsty.
2. Catholic Relief Services who provide hope and food to many in need.
3. Lastly we are having trees, hungry for CO2, planted in your name to help our planet stay whole and cool. So we have given financial support to American Forests who plants a tree for every dollar we contribute. A visit to their website will provide you with information on where the trees are being planted including in Minnesota and Michigan.

We hope and pray that some time this scared season you experience a moment of stillness to encounter the Holy, the Word made Flesh, who can feed your hungry soul.

Shalom and Merry Christmas!!

Peter & Jeff]]> http://trinitypartnersgroup.com/blog.php?entry=18
-Durga Banka]]> http://trinitypartnersgroup.com/blog.php?entry=17 http://trinitypartnersgroup.com/blog.php?entry=16
Religious conversion is being grasped by ultimate concern. It is other worldly falling in love. It is total and permanent self-surrender without conditions, qualifications, reservations. But it is such a surrender, not as an act, but as a dynamic state that is prior to and principle of subsequent acts. For Christians it is God's love flooding our hearts through the Holy Spirit given to us. It is the gift of grace. The replacement of the heart of stone by a heart of flesh. Religious conversion is a total being in love as the efficacious ground of all self-transcendence, whether in the pursuit of truth, or in the realization of human values, or in the orientation man adopts to the universe, its ground and its goal.(Method in Theology, Bernard Lonergan, pp. 241)

This transformation, conversation, change in horizon leads inexorably to a moral transformation; when one's decisions and choices are not based on satisfaction, but value so that our freedom may exercise its ever advancing thrust toward authenticity. Authenticity that sings in the words of the band Swithfoot, that we are tried of a culture that 'equates success with excess'. This moment in time cries out for a genuine human spiritual transformation; a being in love with God that we have perhaps never known. Taking shape in an economic and environmental change of heart that puts the human race on a path to reconciliation with the created order.

This will not be easy given human nature. Some 76 years after they were written the words of Reinhold Niebuhr ring like a clarion call to our age:

'The justifications are usually dictated by the desire of the men of power to hide the nakedness of their greed, and by the inclination of society itself to veil the brutal facts of human life from itself.'(Moral Man and Immoral Society, Reinhold Niebuhr, p. 8)

And again:

'The limitations of the human mind and imagination, the inability of human beings to transcend their own interests sufficiently to envisage the interests of their fellow-men as clearly as they do their own makes force an inevitable part of the process of social cohesion. But the same force which guarantees peace also makes for injustice. Power, said Henry Adams, is poison; and it is a poison which blinds the eyes of moral insight and lames the will of moral purpose.'(Moral Man and Immoral Society, Reinhold Niebuhr, p. 6)

My prayer is that we seize this moment, regardless of religious belief or non-belief and wake from our sleep and begin building a kingdom were 'the wolf shall be a guest of the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; the calf and the young lion shall browse together, with a little child to guide them.' (Isaiah 11: 6)]]> http://trinitypartnersgroup.com/blog.php?entry=15 http://trinitypartnersgroup.com/blog.php?entry=14 http://trinitypartnersgroup.com/blog.php?entry=13 http://trinitypartnersgroup.com/blog.php?entry=12 http://trinitypartnersgroup.com/blog.php?entry=11 http://trinitypartnersgroup.com/blog.php?entry=6