3rd St. Johnstide 2018, Invisible Gold

Ghirlandaio

St. Johnstide
Luke 3: 7-18

John said to the crowds coming outto be baptized by him, “You are sons of the serpent yet! Who led you to believe that you can avoid the decline of the old ways of the soul? Produce true fruits in keeping with a change of heart and mind. And do not begin excusing yourselves by saying, “We have Abraham as our father.” For I tell you that God can raise up sons for Abraham out of these stones. The ax is already poised at the root of the trees, so every tree that does not produce good fruit is felled and thrown into the fire.”

“What should we do then?” the crowd asked. John answered, “Let the man with two tunics share with him who has none, and the one who has food should do the same.”

Tax collectors also came to be baptized. “Teacher,” they asked, “what should we do?” Do not collect any more than you are authorized to do,” he told them.
         
Then some soldiers asked him, “And what should we do?” He replied, “Do not intimidate and do not accuse people falsely—be content with your pay.”

The people were waiting expectantly and were all wondering in their hearts if John might possibly be the Christ, the Messiah.

John answered them all, “I wash you with water. But one more powerful than I will come, the thongs of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will wash you with the breath of the Holy Spirit and with fire. His winnowing fan is in his hand to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, while he burns up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”
 
And with many and various exhortations John preached the good news to the people.

Buddha, Jan de Kok

3rd St. Johnstide
July 8, 2018
Luke 3: 7-18

Sometimes the sweetest fruit comes from an old tree; but usually, it is a tree that has been long cared for with thoughtful pruning and generous stimulus to growth.

One of humanity’s old ‘cultural trees’ is Buddha’s eightfold path. This path is a call to be mindful of how a one thinks and acts. Buddha encourages us to make rightful decisions based on appropriate strivings and to accurately recollect and contemplate our past thoughts and actions.

The eightfold path is echoed in today’s reading. John the Baptist’s suggestions for preparing our hearts and minds for an encounter with Christ is especially relevant for today: Share; don’t hoard. Don’t take advantage. Don’t intimidate. In other words, curb your selfishness. Be generous. Be content.

These

Tree of Life, Tiffany

heart generosities and soul prunings produce “good fruits in keeping with a change of heart and mind”. It doesn’t matter how young or how old the soul. Nor do one’s genetics, social standing or cultural heritage matter either. We all can practice cultivating our own hearts and minds. For every tree that does not produce good fruit is of no real use to the world. No matter how insignificant our outer lives may otherwise seem, our hearts and minds can become like the tree described by Denise Levertov:
 
    …this tree, behold,
    glows from within;
    haloed in visible
    invisible gold.*

---

*Denise Levertov, “Last Night's Dream”

Visit our new website!   

2nd St. Johnstide 2018, God's Voice

St. Johnstide
John 3: 22-36

After this, Jesus and his

Egbert Codex

disciples came to the land of Judea. There he stayed with them and baptized. John also baptized; he was at Aenon near Salim because there was much water there, and people came to him and were baptized. For John had not yet been imprisoned.

Then a dispute arose between the disciples of John and the Jews about the path of purification. And they came to John and said to him, “Master, he who came to you beyond the Jordan, to whom you bore witness – here he is, baptizing, and everyone is going to him.”

John answered, “No human being can grasp spiritual power for himself that is not given to him from the higher worlds. You yourselves can testify that I said, ‘I am not the Christ, but I have been sent before him.’

“He who has the bride, he is the bridegroom. But the friend of the bridegroom, who stands by and listens to him, he is filled with joy at the bridegroom’s voice. This joy of mine is now full. He must increase, but I must decrease.

He who descends from above, out of the spiritual world, is elevated above all beings of the earth. Whoever is only of the earth, whose being arises from the earthly, his word is also earthbound.

He who comes from the heavens is elevated above all who have arisen from the earthly. What he has seen and heard in the world of the spirit, to that he can bear direct witness, but no one accepts his testimony.

But

whoever accepts his testimony, sets his seal to this: that God is true [truth] [that there is no higher truth than the reality of God]. Whoever God has sent, his words are filled with the power of divine thought, for God gives the spirit to human beings not according to human rules, but according to the creative power that he awakens in man.

The Father holds the Son surrounded in his love, and has given everything into his hands. Whoever trusts in the power of the Son within himself, he grows out of the earthly into timeless life.

Whoever cannot trust in the power of the Son within will not behold the world of life; rather the working might of the spirit world must one day burn him like a fire that will consume him.”

2^nd St. Johnstide
July 1, 2018
John 3: 22-36

Here

Workshop of Titian

in the Northern Hemisphere, it is high summer. The earth is in the sun’s embrace. Meanwhile, the other side of the earth is in midwinter. With both sides of her being, the earth is looking to her sons and daughters. Her greatest wish is that the soul of humanity be joined with the Sun-Spirit, just as she herself has joined with Him. In joining with Him we will become fruitful and fulfill our divine destiny.

It is no accident that the gospel reading mentions a bride and bridegroom. For it is the time when the soul of humanity is to wed its Beloved.


St Francis of Assisi said:

I hear you singing, dear, inviting me to your limb.
I am coming, for all that we do is a
preparation for love.

I hear you singing, my Lord, inviting me to your throne.
We are coming, dear, for all the toil you have
blessed us with is a preparation to know and hold the
sacred.

I hear you singing, my soul, but how can it be that
God’s voice has now become my own?
“That’s just a wedding gift for our
Divine Union,”
my Beloved
said.* 

*A Wedding Gift”, St Francis of Assisi, in Love Poems to God, Daniel Ladinsky, p. 44. 

Visit our new Website!

1st St. Johnstide 2018, Tailor Your Robe

Mark 1, 1-13

This is the beginning of the new word from the realm of the angels, sounding forth through Jesus Christ. Fulfilled is the word of the prophet Isaiah:

Tamara Rigishvili

Behold, I send my angel before your face.
He is to prepare your way.
Hear the voice of one calling in the loneliness of the human soul
Prepare the way for the Lord within the soul,
Make his paths straight, so that he may find entrance into Man’s innermost being!

Thus did John the Baptist appear in the loneliness of the desert. He proclaimed Baptism, the way of a change of heart and mind, for the acknowledgment of sin. And they went out to him from all of Judea and Jerusalem and received baptism from him in the river Jordan and recognized and confessed their failings.

John wore a garment of camel’s hair and a leather belt around his waist. Fruits and wild honey were his food. And he proclaimed: ‘After me comes one who is mightier than I. I am not even worthy to bend down before Him and to undo the straps of His sandals. I have baptized you with water, but He will baptize you with the fire of the Holy [healing] Spirit.’

In those days it happened: Jesus of Nazareth came to Galilee and was baptized in the Jordan by John.
And at the same time, as he rose up again out of the water, he beheld how the spheres of the heavens were torn open, and the spirit of God descended upon him like a dove.

And a voice sounded from the world of the spirit: ‘You are my son, the beloved —in you is my revelation.’ [‘Today I have conceived (begotten) you.’ Luke 3:22]

1^st St. Johnstide
June 24, 2018
Mark 1: 1-11
 
“Behold, I send my angel before your face. He is to prepare your way. Hear the voice of one crying in the loneliness of the human soul.” Mark 1:1, 2

These words, of course, refer to John the Baptizer, and his role in preparing the way for Christ Jesus. At the same time, we can certainly resonate with the mood of these words; for many of us, this desert loneliness of the human soul is how modern life feels. We all feel like John.

At the same time, we each also

Klocek

have an angel that walks before us. This angel helps us make straight our own soul paths so that Christ can find entrance into the depths of our hearts.

We are hovering at the solstice. The year is turning. As the outer light diminishes, it will turn into warmth. Now is the time to begin again; to turn around, to change our hearts and minds. It is time to begin to turn inward, to warm our hearts. As the poet says:

This is now.  Now is,
all there is.  Don't wait for Then;
strike the spark, light the fire.
….
The green earth
is your cloth;
tailor your robe
with dignity and grace.*

*Rumi, “Begin”, (adapted by Jose Orez from a version by Coleman Barks in The Soul of Rumi).  

Visit our new website!