Monday, November 18, 2019

A paradoxical journey into...


I can still remember my introduction to paradox.  When we were in grade school we were very proud to be able to repeat the following:"I went to the pictures(movies) tomorrow.  I bought a front seat in the back. I fell from the floor to the gallery, and broke a front bone in my back." (That was being cool back then!!! That is way. way back then when we lived the simple life)  Would that be my only encounter with the challenge of paradox?  No such luck.  On looking back, I am seeing more clearly that my whole life has been spent first embracing and then becoming reconciled with the paradoxes that come with life, and the everyday living of this mysterious life we are gifted with. ("Life is not a problem to be solved it is a mystery to be lived.")  We are daily challenged to live this life in accordance with the intention and plan our Creator God, as it is constantly being revealed to us. We are being educated anew as in the proper stewardship of our earth and cosmos.  There is a growing disconnect between what is in the best interest of all creation and the interest of those who want to create nothing but wealth.  This wealth creation comes at the expense of those who can afford it the least.  When will this exploitation of the poor and vulnerable cease?  Only when a new consciousness breaks through as the result of real conversion.  Conversion is tough.  It involves a new way of seeing.  It means we turn in our old set of glasses and be ready for the vision that both shocks, and sickens us.  Then we will have to decide whether to take the risk of real involvement or choose to let the death knell be rung louder and louder.

Only actions and prayer can transforms us from our egocentrism into way of thinking and acting into a Christ-centered way of living.  It will be a combination of Gethsemane and "Calvary moment" for all who dare.  We just cannot stand as spectators to the rape and abuse, we must take the actions that are demanded of us.  A deepening of our understanding of Eco-theology and Eco-spirituality will help in our conversion.  We are never converted once for all but again and again.  This is with ever increasing pain.  The deeper the pain the more we will live in freedom and joy.

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