Interlude

During the last few months, I have been experiencing internal changes. There is nothing significant, but it is source of wonder.  Thinking about what may be different prompts this rumination.

It has been some time since I have distanced myself from commenting on political and policy matters. Clearly, it is difficult or impossible to focus on policy that is without political implications. The politics of our nation is so divisive that I cannot participate.  I trust that my nightmare will end short of disaster. I surely hope so.

What I find interesting is that the many serious issues that surface in daily news have little emotional impact.  What I think is happening is that I am now old enough that there is insufficient time left for me to experience the outcome of our national dystopia. Surely, I am convinced that my vision will never happen in my life time. The current course will require a long time to undo the damage before setting a new course. I surely am concerned about the world my grandchildren will inherit.

It is strange to be a witness of contemporary national dynamics as though I were living on a different planet. I compare this experience with my relationship with Christianity and the Catholic Church. I continue to read writings relevant to religion, albeit, without the personal itch experienced in my past. I read daily the thoughtful meditations of Richard Rohr, a Franciscan priest, whose understanding of God and our human existence is most relevant.  Needless to say, his understanding of God is quite different than the institutional message.

As I can be an active searcher of religious truth without being involved in institutional dynamics of the church, so it seems that I can be aware of current affairs without anxiety. The perilous plight of our planet that seems stressed by our global warming trajectory will not be revealed in my life time.  The implications of economic distortions that accelerate international strife will undoubtedly worsen, but again, I will not experience the outcome.

So I am attributing my lack of angst to my age. I am no less concerned, but my concern is more intellectual without the customary emotion.

It has been interesting to realize that my understanding that I am each moment in touch with the entire universe. This is consistent with the insights of Richard Rohr, but amazingly enough, they essentially reverberate the insights of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, the Jesuit paleontologist who died in 1955, the year I entered the seminary. Teilhard’s insights were so moving that I often saw myself celebrating the Eucharist with the realization that I was in touch with all reality.    Now, I see myself in the same way, knowing that anyone and everyone could have this vision and understanding, independent of the constraints of the particular circumstances of life. Whoever you are or wherever you are have no constraints on the reality of this understanding of our existence. Life is a gift and the gift enables us to be aware that our contingency is no constraint on our existence. I am, in this (and every) moment in touch with the entire universe.