I don’t suspect that anything about Bethlehem that night was actually silent: people teeming and bustling along as they search for accommodations or catching up with old family friends as they wait to be registered; animals bleating and braying.
.. I’d like to think that God breaking into the world would be noticeable, that it would be obvious. Surely God-loving people can’t miss God breaking into our midst, right? And yet here God enters with the glorious cry of a newborn baby, requiring bouncing and burping, feeding and cleaning
Richard Rohr: Universal Love
And I can’t deny there are numerous black and white, vengeful scriptures, which is precisely why we must recognize that all scriptures are not equally inspired or from the same level of consciousness. (This is why models of human development like Spiral Dynamics can be so helpful.)
.. Yes, you have to begin with dualistic thinking, just as you must first develop a healthy frame before you can move beyond it. Jesus often made strong binary statements, for example, “You cannot serve God and money” (Matthew 6:24); “The Son of Man will separate the sheep from the goats” (Matthew 25:32-33). We must first be capable of some basic distinctions between good and evil before we then move higher. Without basic honesty and clarity, nondual thinking becomes very naïve. We must first succeed at good dualistic thinking before we also discover its final inadequacy in terms of wisdom and compassion. Not surprisingly, Jesus exemplifies and teaches both dualistic clarity and then non-dual wisdom and compassion: “My Father’s sun shines on both the good and the bad; his rain falls on both the just and the unjust” (Matthew 5:45).
.. As long as your ego is in charge, you will demand a retributive God; you’ll insist that hell is necessary. But if you have been transformed by love, hell will no longer make sense to you because you know that God has always loved you in your sinfulness. Why would God change policies after death?
.. Could God’s love really be that great and universal? Love is the lesson, and God’s love is so great that God will finally teach it to all of us. Who would be able to resist it once they see it? We’ll finally surrender, and God—Love—will finally win. God never loses. That is what it means to be God. That will be God’s “justice,” which will swallow up our lesser versions of retributive justice.
Jesus did not teach with concepts or theories
Tertullian, a third century Father of the Church, often called the first Christian theologian, said “enfleshment is the hinge of salvation.” [2] We don’t come to the God Mystery through concepts or theories but by connecting with what is—with God’s immediate, embodied presence which is all around us. I want you to begin to notice that almost all of Jesus’ common stories and examples are nature based and relationship based—and never once academic theory!
Richard Rohr: The Cosmic Christ: The Blueprint
Let’s begin in the beginning with the prologue to John’s Gospel (John 1:1-11). Older Catholics may remember that this was recited in Latin at the end of every mass prior to Vatican II. This prologue is not talking about Jesus; it’s talking about Christ. I’m going to give you, as I often do, my own translation, but I think a fair one. Instead of “Word,” which is taken from Greek philosophy’sLogos, I’m going to substitute the word “Blueprint,” because it’s really the same meaning. Logos is the inner blueprint.
In the beginning was the Blueprint, and the Blueprint was with God, and the Blueprint was God. . . . And all things came to be through this inner plan. The inner reality of God was about to become manifest in the outer world as the Cosmic Christ.