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St. Paul affirms that we cannot apart from Initiating Energy align with the Supreme. He speaks of kinetic coordination with Christ, sustained by trusting response. He lifts the Death-Resurrection out of the First Century local context and shows that the Event initiates a translocal Eventing, which anyone can enter into, at any moment.
Daily communion with God is participating in Coordinating Union with Christ. By Grace we die with Christ: He gave up [gives up] His spirit [or breath] and died [dies]. Each time we let go of self-will, we relax into Vivifying Grace, and this is the Death-Resurrection. Then “the curtain in the house of God [i.e. the Temple] was [is] torn in two from top to bottom.” The Jerusalem Temple had two curtains, one at the entrance of the Temple, one at the entrance of the Most Holy Place. Regardless of the curtain the passage refers to, the connotation is an opening to the Formless Presence beyond form, including forms of religion. That the curtain “was torn,” not “tore,” from “top to bottom” connotes Prevenient Grace.
Hebrews applies this mystical access as through the flesh of Jesus. In 10.20 (ESV): by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh. Likewise, in 6.19-20 Jesus is depicted as opening to us a way through the curtain into heaven, now. Note, this is not into an afterlife, but the Presence now: This confidence is like a strong and trustworthy anchor for our souls. It leads us through the curtain of heaven into God's inner sanctuary. Jesus has already gone in there for us. He has become our eternal High Priest in the line of Melchizedek.
Note, in the Mark passage the Temple is not destroyed; that would imply negation of religion. No, the form, the structure, indeed, the institution, remains. Form is opened to be access to Spirit. This text does not support spirituality apart from forms of religion and institution. Bruno Barnhart writes of the “flesh” being, in the words of the Church Father Tertullian, the “hinge of salvation.” We enter the Mystery as “bodily beings through the crucified and risen body of Jesus, into which we are incorporated” (Second Simplicity). There is no disincarnate spirituality. The Nondual Spirit is only experienced in an incarnate spirituality.
The torn curtain or the torn flesh implies religion freed to do what religion is meant to; that is, be means of accessing the Sacred, initiated by the Sacred. Form is part of Prevenient Grace. Form is sacred. Confessions, creeds, sharing the peace, hymns, sermons, Eucharist, baptism, announcements—yes, even announcements—, walking a labyrinth together, healing prayer, small groups, … are means of communal access. The physicality of place and persons provides entrance to subtle Spirit.
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So, meditation, prayer, fasting, spiritual reading, simplicity, indeed, any spiritual discipline, is part of entering into Living Union with Christ and, thereby, with others. In Coordinating Union with Christ, we receive the Energy and Clarity to serve. We act more out of attunement with what God is trying to do in the world, rather than ingenious programs and plans. We relax more in the process, trusting God is doing more around us and in us than we begin to know. We pace ourselves and give God more room to work both outside and within our timely, compassionate efforts. We move from busyness to the Sabbath Rest, a Rest wherein from that Rest in Grace, we serve according to our gifts. We find the Divine Effort working through our efforts and bringing results that we, apart from Initiating Grace and our reply to that Grace, could never bring forth.
Spiritual Exercise
The daily exercises are for assisting in putting into practice the daily writings. Please use them to the extent they encourage you in spiritual formation.
1. Do your daily meditation.
2. What Means of Grace help you commune with God and serve others?
3. Do you have a daily rhythm to integrate prayer, work, and rest?
4. How can you be in Rest and, still, be active? How would this correspond to the idea of Effortless Effort?
5. If you are familiar with Taoism or the Tao Te Ching: How does living in and from Coordinating Union with Christ correspond with living in accord with the Tao (i.e. the Way)?
6. What is the difference between a local-only view and nonlocal view of the Death-Resurrection?
7. How is meditation a pattern of Death-Resurrection?
8. Is it possible for you to experience Christ apart from the names, teachings, and rites of Christianity? Why? Why not?
9. Read, again, the opening quote from St. Angela of Foligno? What does the whole world being full of God imply about the Divine? About Grace?
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