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One Love
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Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 6/13/2009 2:57 PM (GMT -6) |   | Some random thoughts...
1) When we are "in Christ", we cannot help but to see Christ in the eyes of all human beings. Christ is the Archetype of whom we are the image...and as Logos, he dwells in the very center of all particular things and all particular beings. The Sprit of Christ is the creative center of all human beings, whether they know it or not...and it's always been that ways. When we see the "logoi", we realize this. It puts a whole different take on...
"Whatever you have done to the least of these, you have done unto me."
AND...
"He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him."
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2) I wonder if one of the chief expressions of sin is this: a lack of genuine joy in simple obedience to God. When I think about Satan, the believed epitome of evil and sin, I chiefly see a personal(?) being who, created to serve, would rather serve themselves (rebellion) than to serve a good outside of themselves. (obedience). The devil would rather rule in hell than serve in heaven, yes?
God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.
"I love, therefore I am in I Am. God is my life."
"God in Christ by His Spirit empowers, enables, energizes and enacts all Christian behavior and ministry as the dynamic expression of the life of Jesus Christ. Christianity is Christ. Christian living is the life and character of Jesus Christ lived out through the Christian." -James Fowler | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 6/13/2009 3:06 PM (GMT -6) | | Tom:
D, I need you to walk me through what it was that worked for you, because I really am spellbound. I'm affirming some things I wasn't ready to previously as well. But I gotta tell you my adjustments are nothing like yours expressed here.
What happened? Was it something in these two pages?
Two things:
1) Reviewing Maximus' logoi and tropoi. Thought about it in terms of dispositional ontology. The creaturely (human) disposition to self-dispose would have to lay with the tropoi. This goes along with Greg's idea of there being epistemic space for the end concresence of the human disposition to NOT be merely the "terminus of divine creativity" by definition. Badda boom, badda bam.
2) No lie. I was sittin' in the garage, praying. Chillin'. And all of a sudden God kept saying
"Mimic. Mimic. Mimic. Mimic."And then I thought about the MIMICRY we see in enculturation and social conditioning (like what you pointed out, Tom)...and RE-PRESENTATION of personal tendencies from personal interactions. I also thought about how Scripture talks about "mimitai" speaking of the believer to Christ. That we are to be imitators of Him. Then the Daniel idea. Basically, this is a better way to say the reality that EO people talk about when saying that Christians are a "further incarnation" of Christ. It's more palatable to say that Christians are "little Christs" through Spirit-indwelled mimicry and re-presentation of Jesus's life through our own unique, personal expressions, grounded in our self-emptying, self-giving love relationship with Christ, our Husband and Life. And it was down hill from there. 
God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.
"I love, therefore I am in I Am. God is my life."
"God in Christ by His Spirit empowers, enables, energizes and enacts all Christian behavior and ministry as the dynamic expression of the life of Jesus Christ. Christianity is Christ. Christian living is the life and character of Jesus Christ lived out through the Christian." -James Fowler Post Edited (One Love) : 6/13/2009 3:26:39 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 6/13/2009 3:08 PM (GMT -6) | | Make sense? 
God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.
"I love, therefore I am in I Am. God is my life."
"God in Christ by His Spirit empowers, enables, energizes and enacts all Christian behavior and ministry as the dynamic expression of the life of Jesus Christ. Christianity is Christ. Christian living is the life and character of Jesus Christ lived out through the Christian." -James Fowler Post Edited (One Love) : 6/13/2009 3:18:33 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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Tom
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353
| Posted 6/14/2009 12:48 AM (GMT -6) | | Yeah, it makes good sense. I'm SO glad this all came together. And I'm able to say some things I didn't before, i.e., that we "extend the incarnation," which may need so much qualifications it's just better to say we're little christs, like you said. Yep. I wanna get the book on Maximus too. But it's $85.00!!!!! What could a monk in Essex, England need with that much money! ;o)
Tom | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 6/14/2009 1:05 AM (GMT -6) | | Tom:
I'm SO glad this all came together.
Me too, bro. 
********************** Tom: And I'm able to say some things I didn't before, i.e., that we "extend the incarnation," which may need so much qualifications it's just better to say we're little christs, like you said.It's sweet that you're willing to go there though.
God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.
"I love, therefore I am in I Am. God is my life."
"God in Christ by His Spirit empowers, enables, energizes and enacts all Christian behavior and ministry as the dynamic expression of the life of Jesus Christ. Christianity is Christ. Christian living is the life and character of Jesus Christ lived out through the Christian." -James Fowler | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 6/15/2009 5:02 PM (GMT -6) | | In the Secret Place of the Most High God
by Father Stephen
"Every human being has a 'secret place' – that within them that is most intimate – that is beyond words – that is made for God. Learning to enter this place is a very difficult thing and only comes with time and practice. Our culture, the world where the most secret things in our lives are shouted from the rooftops, tells us to profane even our secrets and shout them to the world as well. And thus we lose something at the very core of our Personhood. Violated, every man and woman becomes a harlot."
****************
Tom hit it squarely...
We AGREE that a human being's identity as a PERSON doesn't come from the memories she has, the actions and behavior she engages in with her context, her relationships with other human beings, nor from anything else in the created realm. Nothing in creation and tell me WHO I am. Only God can do that. So there has to be a place, a moment, an experience where God and I get this done, where I experience God in Christ through the Spirit telling me that I'm a priceless beloved son, that the very sustaining core of my existence, where the potential for fulfilling my 'logos' resides, is an indestructible grace-gift from God that doesn't derive from anything in the created order.
God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.
"I love, therefore I am in I Am. God is my life."
"God in Christ by His Spirit empowers, enables, energizes and enacts all Christian behavior and ministry as the dynamic expression of the life of Jesus Christ. Christianity is Christ. Christian living is the life and character of Jesus Christ lived out through the Christian." -James Fowler Post Edited (One Love) : 6/15/2009 5:10:14 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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Tom
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353
| Posted 6/16/2009 1:53 AM (GMT -6) | | Page two, by D:
Posted 6/12/2009 8:54 AM (GMT -6)
Lemme think. Meantime, check out the Logos/Tropos distinction talked about here...
Pages 26-28
I'm thinking the "tropos" aspect is what you will like, Tom... | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 6/16/2009 11:42 AM (GMT -6) | | |
I'm so glad we're on this tip. The reality Tom described above is JUST WHAT these people are talking about...
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Meister Eckhart on "Detachment" The man who has submitted his will and purposes entirely to God, carries God with him in all his works and in all circumstances. Therein can no man hinder him, for he neither aims at nor enjoys anything else, save God. God is united with Him in all his purposes and designs. Even as no manifoldness can dissipate God, so nothing can dissipate such a man, or destroy his unity. Man, therefore, should take God with him in all things; God should be always present to his mind and will and affections. The same disposition that thou hast in church or in thy cell, thou shouldst keep and maintain in a crowd, and amid the unrest and manifoldness of the world.
Some people pride themselves on their detachment from mankind, and are glad to be alone or in church; and therein lies their peace. But he who is truly in the right state, is so in all circumstances, and among all persons; he who is not in a good state, it is not right with him in all places and among all persons. He who is as he should be has God with him in truth, in all places and among all persons, in the street as well as in the church; and then no man can hinder him.
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Poustinia:
Ultimately, however, the poustinik's call is to the desert of one's own heart wherein he dwells with God alone, whether in the workplace or in a solitary locale. In the words of Jesus Christ, "But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.
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"Live in the world as if only God and your soul were in it; then your heart will never be made captive by any earthly thing. "
Saint John of the Cross
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He who can see the inward in the outward, to him the inward is more inward than to him who can only see the inward in the inward.
Henry Suso
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Then from here...
Mystical marriage bestows the conscious sharing in God’s own life and power and almost complete self-forgetfulness. The mystic now seeks only God’s will and honor and desires to serve God totally. Although external trials may continue, absolutely nothing can touch the peace and freedom at the deepest core of the mystic’s being. The transformed mystic desires greatly to suffer, but in no way does this suffering disturb the peace that flows from the ever present, explicit awareness of living God’s very own life. In fact, the only thing separating the mystic from the beatific vision is this life itself.
The mystic is experientially united to a love that communicates itself to all persons and to all things. Therefore, the more deeply the mystic experiences union with God, the more deeply union with God’s creation is experienced. Transformed by and into Love itself, the mystic becomes creative, totally self-giving, radically concerned about others—in short, spiritually fecund.
Hence, mystics heal in their own persons and through apostolic service the fragmentation found in so much of human life. They become an even deeper part of the great process of life. Wholly in God, yet totally in the world, they experience both absolute peace and a holy anxiety to serve God and God’s world.
The mystics insist, however, that the mystical life is more than heroic virtue or service to the world. These are the outward expressions of their union with God, the sacramental expression of their mystical lives. They are socially and often politically active because they seek God and God alone. Only this—not “experiences,” not a transformed personality, not serving the world—gives the mystical life its ultimate value.
Nonetheless, the mystics are the most impressive servants of humanity the world has ever seen. These deified, christified, spirit-filled persons are the amplifiers of every person’s more hidden life of faith, hope, and love. Their lives help us bear the interior whispers and see the faint flickers of divine truth and love in ourselves and others. The Christian mystics point the way to fully authentic human life by illustrating what it means to be a human being, what life means: eternal union (which begins here) with the God of love.
Harvey Egan, S.J.
An Anthology of Christian Mysticism
God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.
"I love, therefore I am in I Am. God is my life."
"God in Christ by His Spirit empowers, enables, energizes and enacts all Christian behavior and ministry as the dynamic expression of the life of Jesus Christ. Christianity is Christ. Christian living is the life and character of Jesus Christ lived out through the Christian." -James Fowler Post Edited (One Love) : 6/16/2009 12:27:12 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 6/16/2009 4:51 PM (GMT -6) | | Just to solidify in my own mind...
Important terms:
theosis (Union with Christ, Christification, Image and Likeness, etc)
hesychasm (Jesus Prayer)
epiklesis (Eucharist)
synapheia (between Christ and human believing "heart"
mimicry (identification and free expressionn of acquired personal values, concepts and behaviors from interpersonal relationship)
re-presentation (multiple contextualized expressions of singular content)
And the stance:
Through practicing the "Sacrament of the Present Moment" in "orans"-like humble, active reception of the Holy Spirit, focusing on Divine Presence (Jesus Prayer, etc) and experiencing inner "stillness" and "apatheia" in God in one's "heart" (hesychasm), the core of us beyond all sensory or intellectual deliberation, one can experience one's own "logoi", thereby experiencing the Holy Spirit of Christ-the-Logos, the Divine Center of All Things, in the deepest center of our most unique and particular "selves." The meeting place of the created "I am" and the Uncreated "I AM...Immanuel" that Satan has NO ACCESS to. In that holy sanctuary of the Self, we offer ourselves as "living sacrifices" to God in faith, we experience God "willing" and "doing" in us, as Christ-the-Logos lives "in, as, and through" us...and we actively participate in God's energies, in God's very life. We are truly "one with the Lord in Spirit."
We become most ourselves when we have a transparent relationship to our Divine Center...when the deepest core of ourselves is sealed into a love covenant with God...when we become irreducibly unique, creative living pray-ers to God.
God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.
"I love, therefore I am in I Am. God is my life."
"God in Christ by His Spirit empowers, enables, energizes and enacts all Christian behavior and ministry as the dynamic expression of the life of Jesus Christ. Christianity is Christ. Christian living is the life and character of Jesus Christ lived out through the Christian." -James Fowler Post Edited (One Love) : 6/16/2009 4:55:27 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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