+++++++++++The Celtic Cross
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++++++++Represents wholeness for me.
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The cross vertical arm represents the meeting of two trajectories.
The upper movement of the human aspiration to meet the transcendent Mystery.
The downward movement of the Mystery becoming incarnate in the human being.
The cross horizontal arm representing the human trajectory in chronological time.
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The equal arm length cross dividing the circle in four equal quadrants being the symbol of the sought for unity of the two aspects resulting in the wholeness of a human being.
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This is not magical but a very rational thing.
Natural but not foregone. It takes know-how, work and relationship (with the other)
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The upward thrust can be seen in the historical markers that have survived.
For instance: if you have had the opportunity to visit the prehistoric cave paintings at places like Niaux, Lascaux, Pech Merle etc. in France, you not only see the striving to express graphically that thrust, but you also experience the sense of sacredness – the setting apart; that these artists long, long ago must have felt and sensed.
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The downward thrust has been seen in exceptional human beings situated within the historical envelope. People like Jesus the Christ; Muhammad; Siddhartha Gautama the Buddha; Lao Tzu; and many others. Human beings who have risen to such a level of consciousness/self awareness that the Mystery is genuinely expressed in them; in their own particular aspect of it.
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These are people who represent the pinnacle of the wholeness achieved by human beings to this time, people with a total level of commitment to know thyself to make this possible. – Change of a different outlook is possible – but no other way seems known than inwardly to one’s mind; dormant through lack of use, care, denial, fortitude, or simply being unaware for most of us
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The Mystery is the making sense of whatever already exists but appears elusive, out of reach because one can easily become confused or distorted by seeing reality as truth when real TRUTH (capital T) is inside oneself. There to know who you really are and how to survive, by leaving the tribal influences and making your own ‘way’ to a more whole or rounded view of what life was and now can become. A view without the self inflicting, despicable views which only cause oneself and others some pain of various forms.

Good Friday 2020
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Sitting in bed this morning drinking a cup of tea, I found my thoughts drifting back to parents, grandparents and great grandparents. What tumultuous times they lived through. The culmination of two millennia of Christian ideals, smashed asunder on a world scale. The hopes of countless generations of people, so fundamentally disappointed during the 20th century and continuing on into this one. What has happened to come to this?
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What a fatal shock it has been.
• Barbaric world wars with the deaths of how many tens of millions not known.
• World wide pandemics killing countless millions more.
• Wealth distortions grown to such a level that a handful of people have more than billions of other peoples.
• The technological research causing significant evil as well as marvellous good.
• The battle for supremacy between different wealth ideologies of the few.
• Etc
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And what will that fatal shock in our present now produce?
A more coercive fall in the same direction?
• More fragmentation within societies
• More paralysis in not knowing what to do.
• More fundamentalist thinking with growing battle between opposites.
• Growing loss of the ability to think deeply.
• Survival of the fittest.
• Culling of the herd.
• Expanding levels of mental illness.
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And no idea of what is wrong inside.
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Will the present way get fundamentally changed?
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One must hope. Humankind is going back toward greater herd like characteristics and the herd does not want things to change, but go on in the same way forever. (And forever is a myth.)
Well, as long as your herd is living the ‘good life’ there is not a great enough shattering of the glass bubble.
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Let us hope that more time, more pain will not need to come yet.
More crosses, and waves of psychological/spiritual dislocation and distortion.
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During the ‘Battle of Briton’ they had communal solidarity, physical camaraderie, all hands to the pump and by the skin of their teeth they managed to get through it.
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The current strategy of ‘flattening the BUG’s curve’ resulting in an extended period of ‘solitary confinement’ until a sufficient number of the herd have been exposed and developed antibodies (to what in the end) is likely to be ‘a bridge too far’ if creative political strategies are not developed to relieve the pressure points that will develop.
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The road ahead may turn out to be a year of Good Fridays.
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Have a read of the linked article and see if your current experience, courtesy of the BUG, gives you any empathy for what the author’s experience has been.

Spirit in the Life of the Church
When looking at the lives of past US Presidents of within living memory, why does Jimmy Carter stand out? For those of the Christian Way, a re-reading of Paul’s letter to the community in Galatia might give some clues worth reflection.
Like Paul, here was a man, when occupying the position of President (and within the confines of that gloried and hoped for redemptive role) attempted to call the people of the United States back to a life powered by the Spirit of God. – The Spirit of Life.

Alas this prophet, like most others, was ridiculed and scorned. The Nation continued on its way, placing its faith in the “Law of the Land”. If the fallacy of that path cannot be seen, particularly since the Global Financial Crisis of 2008-9 and its evidence of massive, overwhelming corruption; no longer gradually, but more like rushing towards Hell, then only one result – damnation will follow.

Unlike the followers of Abraham, fellow travellers of the current corrupt path will end up in the same outcome. A re-visiting of the efforts of Carter’s Presidency might be an opportunity for the transforming power of the Spirit to effect another breakthrough in our opening to reality. Paul’s call to the Galatians is a clarion call to all in the Eurocentric West today. Consider chapter 5 verses 13-15. – How well do I who claims to be a follower, a pilgrim of the Way, measure up? Paul’s call to the Galatians, chapters 4,5,6 make it clear that living by the Spirit is the opposite to living by the law of fickle public opinion.

There always seems to be something to come along and burst the bubble!

Link to read article