Still reading Richard Rohr this morning. I just read: Salvation (salus: healing) is not dependent on feeling or an person's response to me. It is not a theory believed, a theology proclaimed, or a group that gives one identity. Is is an inner clarity that forever allows one to recognize bogus authority and pseudo-surrender.
Salvation is healing, especially of the mind and heart. Salvation is being able to discern between the charlatans and the genuine spiritual ones. Salvation keeps us from being gullible to the spiritual snake oil salesmen/women. Salvation brings new eyes and ears to life.
This all seems to be so to me. I have been reading the mystics for many decades, and my spiritual understanding is greatly informed by them as well as by my personal spiritual experiences and my study of scriptures. The mystics do not speak the fire and brimstone, come to Jesus kind of things that some still spew. They speak of the Christ Presence awakening within. They do not spout fear and superstition, they speak of God's Love.
Theology is basically what other people said about God, and they did not necessarily know what they were talking about. A person can say most anything, whether or not we believe what is said is highly dependent on our inner clarity and direct connection to the Holy Presence. What do you say? What do you know? How do you live when you know you are living up to the highest and best? What does a healed you look like?
There is a story at Teresa of Avila, when being questioned by the church, was asked if she believed in hell. She answered "yes," and turned to the nun beside her and quietly said, "but it is empty." She knew God directly and was not morally bound by the theology of the day. It only spoke of what men of old said was the way it is.
The choice between good and evil is necessary in order to give freewill any meaning. That does not mean that the God of Love is really going to put the ignorant in eternal fire. It is ridiculous to argue that God is pure Love and will do awful things that humans cannot even do and be named good. Too many have made God into a giant human, sometimes into the worst kind of human.
Well anyway, the upshot of what I want to say this morning is this: Beware of those who try to control you, use fear and superstition to hold you, and do not urge you to explore and study and seek. Seek that inner clarity that sets you free. Walk with the Light of God. Be the beacon of Love and Light and Clarity into this world. Remember Jesus made it all quite simple with his 2 great commandments, which are basically LOVE LOVE LOVE. Be healed. Walk out of the fog of fear. Dare to live awake in God.
With the strange times we live in, it is perhaps more important than ever that as many people as possible reach inner clarity. I think we need to lift up our civilization, our core values and the actual life lived with the Cosmic Christ.
Holy Presence, I give thanks that You are with me, in me, with and in us all. Quicken in us that inner clarity that sets us free from nonsense. Free us from ourselves, from accumulated false beliefs, from ignorance. Set us on the path of awakening to You in real ways. Heal us.
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