(From The Naked Now, 2009).

First, read this overview of Richard’s book:

Here are some notes I scribbled on this concept (I’ve included some page-numbers, but sorry, I don’t have a copy of Richard’s book in front of me right now for the others).

Then his brilliant little Appendix “AND”…

* Stop thinking about this or that: fall into ‘objectless consciousness’

* The ‘Joyful mind’ can find truth on both sides (of the conservative/liberal or dualistic/non-dualistic approaches)

* Begin with a ‘yes’ of basic acceptance, not too quickly labeling, analyzing or categorizing things in or out, good or bad. Leave the field open (49)

* The terms ‘liberal’ and ‘conservative’ invariably refer to rather useless polarity thinking… Dualistic thinkers are trapped in such small frames. Liberals protect themselves by dualistic suspicion judgments (dismissive of others). Conservatives do the same with dualistic worthiness judgments. Both engage in their own kind of superiority system (92)

* How did we ever get correct rational ideas confused with an abundant life (John 10:10)?

* I’m not writing to change anyone’s beliefs, doctrines, dogmas, or moralities. I’m hoping to change the mind by which you understand these very things

* Catholic theology has always insisted that faith and reason are not opposites

* The litmus-test of a higher state of awareness is that it always includes and honors all the previous stages. No longer either-or thinking but now both-and thinking…

* With the judgmental, unforgiving, weak in empathy and sympathy, inside the prison of meritocracy, where all has to be deserved… Be patient with such people, even if you are the target of their judgment, because on some level that is how they treat themselves as well.

*****

Richard has an Appendix titled ‘The Shining Word “AND” ‘

“And” teaches us to say yes

“And” is the very Mystery of Trinity (pp. 180-181).

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Shalom/Salaam/Pax! Rowland Croucher

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Comment from a pastor-friend:

Rowland, this very fresh reflection on the word ‘and’ reminds me of a
sermon I heard as a teenager preached by a mild, grey Uniting Church
minister – the type I had been trained not to expect anything good from
– based on the text in 1 Cor 16:9 “A door stands open for great and
effective ministry AND there are many opponents.”

He took the line that most of us would have said BUT, whereas Paul was
an ‘AND’ type of bloke who accepted opponents and challenges as part of
the landscape, providing no grounds to ever give up.

It was a memorable and helpful sermon, AND the beginning of a cure of my
prejudices!

June 29, 2010

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From another:

I once used to think that there must have been a line in the sand theologically that really sorted out who was in and who was out (as Gresham Machen had pointed out).

But Jesus’ parables tell us to be very carefull thinking about who was in and who was out of His kingdom.

I still dislike deeply the ’60s ‘Honest to God’ liberalism (as St Paul said, if Jesus is not risen then we are the most miserable of creatures) but I have similarly come to dislike the literalism, judgmentalism and conservatism that drives so much evangelical Christianity . . . and the sheer textual gymnastics that so many evangelicals use to avoid so many textual attrocities God’s people ascribed to the God in the OT almost drives me mad.

The post-evangelical movement in the 90s helped, as does the Emergent church stuff . . . but in the end we are left with a God who is maddeningly subtle, hidden (the philosophical stuff behind this attribute is miles deep!) and answers prayers with very little regularity (mountains aren’t moved, the dead arenit raised and very few serious illnesses are ever healed).

Still, God is properly basic, in the philosophical sense. That hits me deeply every couple of years. There is no reality without a real intelligence behind it. Mind presupposed the Mind. . . The God of the philosophers may not be identical to the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (a la Pascall) but I believe She is there yet behind the human words about God in the Bible…

****

Another: The problem for “us” is the answer is seldom the answer we want to or expect.

If we pray for peace, the answer is for “us” to be peacemakers even at the cost of our lives.

If we pray for end to hunger, often God tells “us” who have an abundance of goods, luxuries) is to share without judging whether or not a body is “worthy” to recieve our so-called sacrifice.

As for healing, I think we sometimes confuse “cure” for healing. I know a man who died from AIDS but joyfully proclaimed – and deepened the faith of many – that tho he would soon die he had been HEALED.

*ends sermon and runs away*

****

Response from another:

Well, I have always thought that prayer was reporting for duty more than requesting something from God. That makes sense! But I fear too often we fudge the NT with these sorts of answers. What was meant in James about the “prayer of faith healing them”? And given that God before all eternity forsees and proposes to answer prayers, well, why does he choose to be so subtle and adept at any sort of reinterpretation? At one church I was part of the blind did see, as we prayed, but by way or corneal transplants; and the paraplegic didn’t walk after endless nights in prayer

I guess you could count that all down to God’s mysteriuous ways, except that we never really see the cripple walk again, more than what medical random weird events would predict. The wife and crippled husband left out church after the failed prayer to attend a faith church, where it was gauranteed, provided you has enough faith. Faith was an actual substance, according to them, and you just needed right words to wield it. But he didn’t walk again (poor bloke, as he was working for our church when he fell off the roof of a house).

I remember turning up at a Full Gospel Business Men’s Breakfast when i was a young Christian, and heard the tale of a faith preacher proclaiming the healing of an amputee. Her amputated leg grew back, apparently, and the meeting was in awe.

But for God curing a cold and restoring an amputeed leg are just as easy. In fact, if God is omnipoitent then creating another universe is as easy as raising the dead and creating new legs or corneas. But we never see anything that might better be discribed by positive psychology.

If the faith that moves mountains is just a metaphor for the benefits of positive thinking, then I am going to have a real barney with Jesus in Heaven and remind him of Lazarus and the works of St Paul and ask Him why the miraculous had to be so maddieningly rare. I have seen the supernatural, and don’t doubt that that realm exists, but as to why we see so few acts within the church is a real problem for me.

****

Another response: As Rohr says elsewhere, prayer at its most essential has little to do with answers and a lot to do with letting go of questions and everything else that clutters our thinking and being available to unconditional love. Most of the suffering we all experience has to do with our disconnect from our true selves, however I confess the distraction of chronic pain can be so great that it prevents some from any attempt at discovering their true selves.