WITHIN 1 15 15

                                                         

                                                          WITHIN

“A point indicates a location”.

“A line indicates a distance between two points”.

“A volume indicates a space”.

An interval indicates duration”.

These constitute the four dimensions.

We cannot measure any other dimensions beyond these four, and our concepts of reality and of real things stem from one or more of these measurements. We generally conclude that something does not “exist” if it cannot be measured by one or more of these measurements. If we talk about something existing which cannot be thus measured, we refer to it as a “myth” or a “fiction”.

To this type of subject there has been frequent reference in ancient fables, mythologies and tales about Santa Claus, extra terrestrials and the like. For many, references to God, angels, heaven, hell and life after death fall into the same category. These cannot be perceived sensibly and consequently they are relegated into the bin of non-existence. This is the situation much of the world now faces; a form of materialism which teaches that there is no limit to what we can attain and possess if we work hard enough to get it. Those who don’t take advantage of their opportunities will remain failures and poor in earthly possessions. Philosophies that place value only in materialistic pursuits and fail to see the value and dignity of each and every other human person, will sooner or later treat people as “things” or consider their own wills as divine; or both.  If the value of a person can be “measured” materialistically, or as how useful he/she is to me, then the world descends into a dog-eat-dog competition to be “top-dog”.

If, however, we consider believing that there is a dimension of the human person not measurable by our standards, a dimension of interiority which is not bound by location, length, volume or duration, and which dimension is, nevertheless “real”, then maybe we are open to the possibility of encountering with new insight into some of the most ancient philosophies of the world.

Throughout the modern history of man, we have looked outwards to the stars to read the answer to the mystery of life. Astrologers saw stories told by the constellations and magi and astrologers gave interpretations of those stories and read man’s destinies in planetary movements and the apparent location of the sun and moon through the “houses” of the Zodiak. The “signs” under which we were born and lived were seen as “significant” predictors to live by. Copernicus, Galileo and the Hubble have put those understandings away and have now caused men to develop new theories or  myths,;  String Theory, Big Bang Theory, and others to explain how this cosmos could have originated from an infinitely small point of no dimensions, exploded outwards at a presently proven accelerating rate to an as yet undetermined future. Nowhere, is any God “seen”.

Possibly, although inexplicably, if there is a God, perhaps He doesn’t require a “place” to be. The creator of the four dimensions from no thing, does not need to be confined within those four.

So where, then, is God? No where, and God is no thing. God is the Creator of time and space itself. This God must, therefore, be connected to this “original” point of no dimensions which is simply “everywhere” and “now” as distinguished from “coming” or “going”. With respect to each of us, this God must be “within”.

Two thousand years ago, a certain man was born. To all appearances and according to human ways of  measurement, this man was like all other men in every respect. As he grew, however, he began to give signs of being special in one respect. He didn’t ever seem to be subject to the common human traits of pride, envy, wrath, sloth, greed, gluttony nor lust. In other words, he was a very good person. But as he grew to manhood, he began to teach others about God in a way which became “offensive”, and people began to talk about him as if he were some kind of nut. His initial teaching about God was really strange to the listeners. He began to say things like, “Change the way you think about reality”, and that “the Kingdom of God is within you” and telling people to “Believe this ‘good news’”.  Very few people believed that Jesus was a true prophet from God and ultimately while he collected a small group of followers who struggled to accept what Jesus taught, at critical junctures they would abandon him to the authorities, who ultimately killed Jesus and hung him up on a cross to die.

We know that this was not the end of Jesus’ teaching, for his followers had experiences of a Risen Jesus and a commission to go out to all the world and preach this ‘Good News’”.

Believing in this good news is not the result of conclusions based upon reason. It is definitely not the consequence of scientific observation. It stems from belief in the trustworthiness of the one proclaiming it, i.e., Jesus, a very “good” man, who nevertheless deflects being called a ‘good man’ by saying, “Only One is good, the Father, the source of all that is good".

And where might we find this Jesus today? 

Within.
                                                                            Charlie Mc

Where is the Kingdom

   WHERE IS THE KINGDOM of GOD?

The very first words ascribed to Jesus in the earliest of the four gospels [Mark, 65-75AD] are the following:

          
          “… ηλθεν ο Іησους εις  την  Γαλιλαιαν  κηρυσσων  το
          ευαγγελιον   του  Θεου  [και  λεγων], οτι  πεπληρωται  ο  καιρος 
          και  ηγγικεν η  βασιλεια του Θεου.  Mετανοιετε και  πιστευετε εν

          τω  ευαγγελιω”,

which translates as:

          
        “Jesus came into Galilee proclaiming the good news of God
       [and saying] ‘The right time is fulfilled, and the Kingdom of God
       is here (“eggeneto”) ,  [so]  change the way you think about
       reality (“metanoiete”) and believe this good news.” 
                                                                                                   (Mk. 1: 14b, 15)

This keynote address of Jesus as presented in Mark is the flash of lightning that precedes the thunder clap. It summarizes and emphasizes exactly what the content of the “good news” of Jesus is. When one hears the term “Good News”, if one is a Christian, one assumes that it means the good message that God has come to save mankind from their sinful imprisonment without relief. The good news is the news about Jesus, his coming, his deeds and words which give us all hope for eternal life. Subsequent to his death and resurrection, the formation of his Church is accomplished to proclaim this good news throughout history to all mankind universally, thus it is to be called the “Catholic Church” [kata olos].

But in the text above, Jesus is presenting the ‘good news’, not about himself, but about the interiority of the Kingdom of God. Jesus spoke in Aramaic, it is believed, and the original gospels were written in Greek. Thus, the translating of Jesus’ words from one language to another required a decision made by the author as to whether or not a word-for-word translation is called for, or a translation which conveys the meaning of the words in the original, or even whether the decision is to transmit the poetic of the verse.  Our standard New Testament translations have come down to us through the Latin of the first two millennia of its history. The translation from Greek original to Latin was not done without difficulty.

The prevalent beliefs today are based upon the translations into Latin of two Greek words whose meaning has been misunderstood for thousands of years and possibly led to the development of doctrine which lay at the foundations of Christian Dogmatic theology and morality which should be reconsidered in light of this error. The keynote address in Mark reveals two translational difficulties which may perhaps have altered the interpretation of these “first” words of Jesus in a very important way. The first of these is with the Greek ηγγικεν , (heggiken)  and the second is with the word μετανοειτε, (metanoiete).

The first comes from the Greek ‘εγγυς’  meaning “nigh, at hand, near (spatially) with a secondary, temporal meaning of “near(in time)”.  J.P.Meier in his classic “The Marginal Jew” (p. 423-434) discusses at length the meaning of this word as it applies to the Kingdom of God. Meier describes this saying as a “sphinx” whose ambiguity can be taken two ways: (1) the kingdom of God is coming (future eschatology) or (2) the kingdom of God is already here (realized eschatology).

            
           “…the literal translation of the verse must read “the kingdom of God has
          drawn near in the sense that the act of drawing near is now over and done
          with and the kingdom is now in a state of having drawn near. But does this
          unwieldy paraphrase mean that the kingdom is now here or simply that it
          has drawn so close and become so imminent that it is “at the door” – or, to
          use another image, that it is like a train just about to pull into the station,
          i.e., “the train is here” (a favorite, if curious, metaphor among modern
          commentators). Obviously, it is very difficult to draw a fine line here
          because of the very nature of this spatial and temporal metaphor… It is
          not surprising, therefore, that proponents of both realized and future
          eschatology can find these texts to support their interpretation of
          'Ηγγικεν.”(p.433)

The question one might ask here is “How close is ηγγίκεν ?

In the Gospel of Luke, which already had as one source Mark, we see a reitteration of the curiosity concerning the kingdom of God.

         “ and being questioned by the Pharisees about when the
          kingdom of God is coming, (Jesus) answered them and said,
          ‘The kingdom of God comes not with observation, nor will
          anyone say ‘Look, here it is, or there.’   For the kingdom of
          God is within you [εντος υμων εστιν]”. (Lk. 17:20-21)

JP Meier (p.424) regards this text of Luke as another fraught with difficulty. He refers to the critic John Dominic Crossan as accepting this text as indicating that the author presents Jesus as proclaiming that the kingdom of God is already present (Realized Eschatology). Meier believes the text is more unclear than this.

         
         “Still, the most common meaning of “entos” is “within”, and
           in the past—from the patristic period through the Middle
           Ages into the early modern period—most interpreters
           preferred this “interiorization” and “spiritualization” of 
          Jesus’ saying:  “Do not look for a visible, spectacular, cosmic
          coming of the kingdom, for the kingdom is already present in
          your hearts.”

Meier does not accept this belief and goes on to say:

          
        “…no matter what stage of the NT tradition is being
          considered, the idea of the kingdom of God as a purely
          interior, invisible,  present spiritual state of individual
          hearts is a foreign intrusion. It is at home in 2^nd-Century
          Christian Gnosticis (so the Gospel of Thomas, sayings 3, 51 
           and 113;  19^th Century German liberal Protestantism, and
           some 20-th century American quests for the historical
           Jesus), but not in the canonical Gospels in general or Luke
           in particular".. (P.426-427)…

           ...and perhaps me.

Another early source which seems to share this notion of interiority is to be found in some of Paul’s earliest letters.

          “…for it was given to me for you to fulfill the Word of God,
           the mystery hidden from the ages and the generations but
           now was manifested to his holy ones, to whom God wished to
           make known what is the riches of the glory of the secret Who
           is Christ  in you, [“εν υμιν”] the hope of glory” 
                                                                          (Colossians 1:25-27)

The comment of the JBC (55:20) by Joseph A. Grassi, M.M., is that:
          “his inner presence in the community of believers all
           over the world is already a guarantee of a future
           community in glory.”

Paul puts strongest emphasis on this belief on the interiority of the kingdom of God, i.e. Christ, when he writes:

          
          “Test yourselves if you wish to be in the faith, prove it, or do
             you not perceive that Christ Jesus [“εν υμιν”] is in    
             you.”                                                                                  (2Cor. 13:5)

There can be little doubt that “in” means “within” in these last examples. Thus it seems that there was the firm belief at the time of earliest teachings, that Gnosticism, Protestantism and the modern quests for the historical Jesus aside, there seems to be a belief in the interiority of the “kingdom” as an early test of Christian faith, but that the passage of time seems to have raised doubts dogmatically that this teaching should be taken literally. Perhaps this is why Jesus so often referred to the faith of little children favorably as compared to the its lacking in the unbelieving scholars.(cf. 1Cor. 1:18-2:26; Mk.10:13-16)

                   -------------------------------------------------

The second word which has perhaps undergone a similar mistranslation is the Greek word  “μετανοίετε” [“metanoiete”] . In the Latin Vulgate, the Greek was translated into the Latin “poenimine!”, which means “Repent!” To repent means “to be sorry for ones’ sins;”

The question arises, if this constitutes Jesus’ first words to his would-be followers then it presumes them to be sinners before they can come to Jesus and be his followers.  From this meaning arose centuries of dogmatic theology involving Original Sin, its cause and its consequences, and thousands of years of ascetical theology which was focused on Justification, Atonement and penitential behaviour. The Pelagian controversy, the traditions of the desert, the semi-Pelagian disputes, Sinfulness, Baianism, Jansenism and Justification by Works versus Faith etc… Martin Luther, Calvinism, Irish Catholicism, Abbe de Rance and the Trappist life and Catholic/Protestant wars in Europe and Ireland/England all were in a large way the result of the mistranslation of “metanoiete”.

In the Rule of Saint Benedict, monks are asked to make vows of Stability, Obedience and Conversatio Mores. The first two vows are easily understood. First, to live in one place, a monastery, so as to avoid escaping into other environments as soon as the first starts to become tedious or even painful- as was the cross to Jesus. Second, to hand over your most precious possession, your self-will, in obedience to the Abbot and the Community visibly, and to God ultimately as did Jesus as he prayed, “not my will, but Thy Will be done.” The third vow, not well understood over the past 1400 years even by monastic theologians, might well have the same meaning as did the original understanding of “metanoiete”. It meant to “Change the way you think”, from a rational “reality is out there, to the message of the good news of Jesus, “The Kingdom is in here,i.e., within you.”

Certainly it cannot be seen, heard, imagined, or understood; but it must be believed. This is what Jesus asks of us, to believe Him. The question we must answer is “Can I trust Him?” If yes, you are a believer. If not, you can still ask to be.
                                                                               Charlie Mc

           

Heart of Mary

                                                         1   -   4   -   3

Heart of Mary

       House Full of   Light                      

              Silently show us 
        
                    The Way  Through this Night

Come Inside

                                                         





 Come Inside    

I lost my  loving sister three weeks ago and I ask you to let me share the loss. I was blessed to have Kiki here with my son Tom and me at our home for the last five months of her life with the finest Hospice care attainable. We were oh so close right up to her passing.

Not to be disturbingly pious nor preachy, but it was our greatest support to focus on Jesus’ first spoken words as recorded in the earliest written of the four gospels, Mark, when from his lips we read: “Metanoiete”(i.e., Change the way you think), the present moment is the right time, and the Kingdom of God is within you; believe THIS ‘good news’.”

Most of us spend our days focused on all outside us and as we seek for a sign of God there, we’re disappointed. It is like an old Desert Father story from long ago where a man is on his hands and knees in the yard outside his home apparently searching for something. When his neighbour looks over and sees him, he calls out, “What are you looking for?”

       “I lost my keys,” he replied. The neighbour asked, “Can I help?”

        “Oh, thank you,” the man replied, and the two of them searched for a long time.

        Finally, as the sun was getting very hot, the neighbour asked, “Do you remember where you  had the keys last?”

        “Oh, yes, it was in my house.”

        “So why are we looking here?” the neighbour asked.

         “Oh, the light is so much better out here” the man replied.

           

We all spend our entire lives looking for happiness, rewards, pleasures outside of us where it is not to be found. The Kingdom of Heaven is within us, and that is “where” we go with passing.

This is not a reality we are asked to see, hear, touch, smell or feel; or to imagine; nor to understand through thought, but rather to BELIEVE because the one asking us to believe it is trustworthy. To focus on believing this truth every minute of every day of our lives, and to pray interiorly is the answer to dealing with our grief and our loss. To believe that this inconceivable God is closer to us now than we are to ourselves, IS the answer. We can’t wait for nor expect a “sign” or a “proof” before believing, we are asked to believe in order to understand. God bless you.

         ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                               [Eulogy given at Kiki's Funeral, Mass, Dec 13, 2014                                     

                            Catherine Ann McNamee
                        July 8, 1931 -December 7, 2014

 I am Kiki’s little brother, Bing.  Kiki asked me personally to say a few words to you, her loved ones and dear friends, on this day. She obviously wishes to punish me for being the supposed “favorite”, all these years.

I don’t know how many of you have ever been to Kiki’s tiny home in Falmouth. I’ve known other homes which were more spacious, more elegant , much more expensive; but I’ve never been in a home so loved, so tidy and clean, so much a piece of heaven for its occupant.  Kiki loved her home, and lived there by a kind of Braille for the last few years of her life. It was like having Helen Keller for a sister. And to be greeted by Kiki as you entered her space was to have experienced a warm, welcoming host for an enjoyable visit. Kiki loved seeing and hearing from her friends.

My earliest memory of my sister was of her being in the hospital for a long time for something called “mastoids”. She also had poor eyesight early on, and when I was in third grade she was undergoing eye surgery for detached retinas. In those days, there was no such thing as lasers, and repairing the retina involved sewing the retina back into place, and requiring the patient to lie on her back for weeks and then wear black cover plates over both eyes with tiny pinholes to peer through for another four weeks. I never heard her complain through it all, although I wasn’t paying too much attention to her, my Mother did all that.

Kiki, through those years, began to develop a way of behaving which I thought was a defense about her eye problems. She told everybody she was so happy to “see” them, and she really was.   She developed friendships with her girlfriends and classmates which have lasted all these years. Her positivity was evident to all who knew her. Every summer our Dad would rent a humble tiny cottage at Dennisport  for $30/month for three months. Kiki would invite all her friends down even though the cottage had no interior doors (just three curtains), no running water, just a old crankhandle pump and an outhouse for a toilet. But we were very happy there.

Kiki  had very  close and lifelong friendships with many and she has asked me specifically to tell them how much she appreciated and valued these friendships every day of her life right up to today. Her good friends included Alice DiRienzo, Arlene Rose, Elizabeth Gleichauf, and her helpful neighbor Regina Wagner. She cherished her special god-daughter Bonnie Cartwright O’Connell, and her weekly chats with Meryl Yanoff.  Most especially she asked me to note how special it has been for her “core group” of friends from girlhood to stay close all these years:  Margaret Doucette, Lizzie McNeil, Gloria Bianchini, Adrienne Curran, Connie Hurney, and Olga Zaruba should probably own AT&T from all the regular phone conversations and visits with Kiki over the past 75 years. To this day I have no idea what they found to talk about, but the conversation is ongoing, only today it begins a new phase, in prayer.

Kiki was especially dedicated to her work at her beloved Norfolk County Agricultural School and with  its students, faculty, staff and administrators, especially Dick Morse.

In 1963 Kiki purchased her tiny home one block from the beach at Falmouth Heights with a clear view of Martha’s Vineyard.  The “cutest cottage in the Heights” became her haven.  She summered there and delighted in the Cape Cod spirit, before retiring to Falmouth and becoming a year-rounder after our Mom’s death in 1996.   With her friend and companion, Sumner Ashley, she began to want to be involved in the neighborhood community and did so as a secretary for the Falmouth Heights-Maravista Improvement Association and volunteer with the Ashumet Conservation Commission. 

In the years after I left the monastery, Kiki would always caution me about preaching too much, especially when my interests turned to Zen meditation. She would always say, “You preach about Zen, but I practice it.” And she was right.

Kiki was and continues to be centered and an excellent listener.

In 1970 Kiki had the joy of becoming God-mother to our Tommy, and eventually  the most loving Auntie to Grace, Claire Zoe and to Chuck.  More recently she ascended to the higher love of grand-neice Ava, and grand nephews Alden and little Charlie.

In her last years, Kiki became a scholar by “reading” thousands of books for the blind, provided on tape by the Perkins Institute.  She poked and felt her way around her home as adroitly as a Wallenda on the high wire, and God help me if I left a chair slightly out of place upon leaving.

Everybody in life is looking for happiness. Most of us spend  our lives looking for it in the wrong place. An ancient Chinese philosopher, Chuang Tzu, once wrote:  “You never find happiness, until you stop looking for it.” These words seem very strange and even opposed to  the promise of our fundamental right to the Pursuit of Happiness. The Christian parallel to this saying may be found in the very first words attributed to Jesus in the earliest written of the four gospels, the gospel of Mark which has Jesus beginning his public ministry with the words:

          “Jesus came into Galilee proclaiming the good news    from God and saying, ‘The right time is now, change the       way you think, for the Kingdom of God is within you;    believe this good news’”

The truth that God dwells within each one of us is impossible to get one’s mind around. You can’t see, hear, touch, taste or smell it, you can’t imagine it nor even think about it, but you can believe it,  if you believe the person proclaiming it.

Kiki had a very difficult last few months. Through it all she maintained a tight fisted  control of her life. When the time came she accepted God’s will and was so grateful for the round-the clock care given her by incredible Tommy, her Doctors and Nurses at Brigham & Womens’ and Dana Farber, and the visiting nurses of South Shore and South Shore Hospice Care under the direction of Doctor Jim Everett.  May God bless them all.

Kiki, whom we pray is in the heavenly presence of God, now knows , and needs belief no more, she “sees” perfectly.  

Kiki didn’t preach to anybody, she just lived what she believed; and she learned to do it in the presence of you, her many friends.  In her love for her family and friends, she gave everything she had been given. May God bless her and keep her in an eternity of love.  May you rest in peace, dear Kik, with our Mom and Dad, Aunties and Uncles, Grampas and Nannies, and all the saints and in the loving presence of the Lord.  Thank you all.

“Stop preaching” she just said.
                                                               

Star Birth

           Meditation-Faculty Day (Mt. 13)
                            

The Gospel of Matthew has presented to us the narrative of Jesus using the agricultural and lakeside setting for a parable suited to his listeners and their particular life experiences. This is as it should be; and a method we teachers can emulate, by helping our students to grow from where they are to where they can be.

This morning I want to try to relate to you an experience I had when I last heard this gospel read.

I had been thinking at the time of words I had just read that day. They were written by one of the world’s first woman astronomers at Harvard Observatory. Her name is  Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin and she wrote:

          “It is true that we base our work  on observed
          facts. If nothing were observed, there would
        be nothing to understand. But the facts are
        not the reality; that is something that lies
        beneath the facts and gives them coherence. If
        science, as I know it, can be described in a few
        words, it might be called ‘a search for the
        Unseen’.”[The Dyer's Hand, Cambridge Press, 
        p.237]

                   -------------------------------------------------
 http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap120722.html 

          On the screen above I have projected a photo taken by the Hubble Space Telescope in 1995. It is of an object of cold gas and dust called the Eagle Nebula. It is relatively close to us at 7000 light-years distance inside our own galaxy, the Milky Way. Gravitational forces are causing this dark matter to collapse into itself causing great pressure and increasing temperatures, until from it young stars emerge. As they emerge they emit large amounts of radiation which literally blows the dust away. The red stars you see are these newborns. Our sun underwent such a birth approximately 5 billion years ago. Our solar system was formed by gas and debris which did not make it into the Sun nor totally escape from it.

           

          Now picture all these brand new stars as "seeds" broadcast by God out into this three dimensional world of time and space, and picture our star, the sun, as being one about which a small piece of matter revolved and which piece of matter had the fertile conditions needed to allow for an evolution of life to proceed to us here today. Good work, God! 
                                        
                                                                  Charlie Mc