The Christian Community in North America

The Life in Dying

During this time before Easter, we celebrate death. In other words, we celebrate the process of letting go, of emptying ourselves. We celebrate moving alone through the narrow gate of transformation. And it’s not that we are morbid or obsessed with the negative. On the contrary, we celebrate death precisely because in Christ, death becomes life.

If we have had the blessing of being with someone passing through the gate of death, it is often only when loved ones leave the room that the dying are able to make the transition from this world into the spirit. Death requires that we let go of something earthly; to die requires that we make the transition alone.

And yet, we are not so much celebrating dying at the end of life. Passiontide is the practice of dying during life.

We are called to die while we live by letting go of our blame and hate toward ourselves and others, so that the life of love can fill our hearts. We are called to die while we live by letting go of our inability to be alone, so that solitude and His constant presence awaken in us. We are called to die while we live by letting go of fear, so that we can stand at peace with the world.

Dear friends, in Christ every circumstance and situation in our lives is an opportunity to die into His life. For the open secret is, Christ is the reality in which we live.

April 10, 2017/1 Comment/by CCNA

Blog

The Drama of Passiontide

Last week, those of us who were up early could experience an amazingly seamless transition: the light of the moon, which day by day became smaller and smaller, fading away in the growing light of the sun.

In this way, just before the beginning of Passiontide, four weeks before Easter, we were reminded of the cosmic Easter drama: how, after the equinox, once the sun has become stronger, the light of the waning moon will be transcended by the glory of Easter Sun-Day.

But what there happened, those early mornings, actually spells out for us that the drama of Passiontide has yet to begin – a struggle, which doesn’t play out in such a flamboyant way as the transition from Carnival, from Mardi Gras to Ash Wednesday, with which the old church shocked its people into their Easter preparations of fasting and penitence.

What we face, from the beginning of Passiontide onwards, is dramatic none-the-less, in a rather personal way; and it’s a struggle, too.

O Man, speak the Passiontide prayers, as well as those of Holy Week –

O, you Human Being here on earth: Come to terms with your own situation, your inner situation, your tragic loss of spirit – as well as with your situation here on earth, with the grave waiting at the end of your life.

Come to terms with all that, and (we have to add) come to terms with the spirits of deceiving false light, of sensual unworthy craving – with their impact on yourself and your earthly situation.

Learn to turn to the Spirit, which in this your life on earth, unites you with the encompassing cosmic realities. Then you will know the real drama of Passiontide, will inwardly experience what needs to be done – before the Sun of Easter can rise, for you as well.

Written by Rev. Arie Boogert in 2007.

March 27, 2017/0 Comments/by CCNA

Blog, Essays

The Three Gifts

…We are given mistakes,

we are given nightmares-

and our task is to turn them into poetry.

And were I truly a poet

I would feel that every moment of my life is poetic,

every moment of my life is a kind of clay I have to mould.

“The actual poet’s task is true for the poetic spirit in everyone-the work of giving form, expression to everything that happens, thus discovering and revealing meaning, the ‘pattern of the glory,’ discovering that all experiences, light or dark, are stars and take their place in the constellation of wholeness.”

~from the journals of Helen M. Luke.

It is the last week of Epiphany, the festival of Candlemas, when we burn the last candles as a sign of the end of this holy time of inner light. We have been touched by the star of Grace. The three gifts which the Kings brought to the Child are also to given to us, to the “Christ in us.” Each one helps us to make “poetry” out of our experiences.

The first one is gold, the most condensed form of sunlight, pressed into a precious metal. Gold is pure, warm, soft, transparent as a crystal in the New Jerusalem. It once served as a foundation for our currency, and now “waits” perhaps, for our consciousness to catch up with the idea that money is there to cultivate brotherhood, not for greed and accumulation.

Gold has other properties in the human being. It is used in the remedy “boswellia” along with frankincense and myrrh to promote health and wholeness. Rudolf Steiner also says that gold has the same physical relationship to other substances that “thinking the thought of God” has to other thought.

So perhaps with the help of the gift of gold, we can learn to listen to the thought of God.Then there is frankincense, the rising smoke of prayer and offering. Reverence and devotion open out hearts in humility. Devotion is almost a lost quality in our times and yet, it is the first step on the path of spiritual knowledge of any kind.

And the third, and perhaps most obscure gift of the Kings, was myrrh which has to do with healing, preservation and immortality. That which is immortal in us, which will move on into future earth existence, needs strengthening, through recognition. We are destined for eternal life. Our higher selves need to be honored, protected, given space, given utterance! For the higher self is indeed the “poet,” giving meaning to our experiences.

We are not merely victims down in the valley, to which good and many bad things happen, but we are on the mountaintop, watching from above, saying “Aha, there is the pattern, there is the difficulty: how can I be of service? How can I make it whole? Make it poetry?

February 2, 2017/3 Comments/by CCNA

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