Just watched a woman's description of shocking thoughts she had about her baby, such as smothering him, as a result of her post partum depression.
The proper term for this is "intrusive thoughts," which is well described in many Internet articles including in Wikipedia. It is a severe problem and is associated with many mental disorders such as depression, anxiety, OCD, PPD and bipolar.
The reason I am mentioning this today is that here is another example of where society as a whole has gone in a totally wrong direction, which harms rather than helps those with intrusive thoughts.
I agree that cognitive behavior therapy is a great help, but CBT is a matter of closing the barn door after the horse is gone. In other words CBT is used to wrestle with and hopefully subdue the intrusive thoughts, yet people remains saturated in intrusive thought stimulation without even realizing it. There are two main weaknesses in society that result in assailing people with intrusive thoughts:
1. Electronic media is a passive means of providing the viewer or listener with thoughts they would never otherwise have had. That's the whole idea of creativity and exposure to new and exciting stimuli, but the problem is that most people have not formed, particularly in childhood, the boundaries of thoughts that people used to have. In other words the past few generations are "thoughts wide open" due to their early addiction and exposure to electronic media. A huge part of normal human development is self awareness and self imposing of not only behavior but also thought boundaries, strong boundaries. The "let it all hang out" generations have damaged this necessary part of normal development. So people who grew up in electronic media times are programmed to have "all channels open to all thoughts, good or evil, wise or foolish, useful or bullshit" and thus are vulnerable to intrusive thoughts.
2. Excessive "spiritual" practices run the same risk, cultivating an undiscipled mind. In fact what passes for "spiritual discipline" in many cults and so forth (and even dabblers in mainstream religion) is actually not discipline in terms of discerning good thoughts and bad thoughts, but being, "open to the universe" and other such bullcrap. Listen, when normal people pray they know who they are and who they are praying to, that being the Almighty God. People who develop excess so called "spirituality" are like lint collectors, opening their minds to whatever crap is floating around out there. Mental crap that floats out there to be collected may be the undisciplined baloney of one's own unconscious mind, the crap thoughts of others via ESP, miasma from the gates of hell, and the urgings of one's own ego to be "special" and to "hear" things that "enlighten" you, but really don't exist. Folks, there is plenty of legit meditation and other spiritual practices, but beware, beware, beware because human ego like a magnet takes you places you should not go for your own good and for that of others.
When I was studying undercover people involved in so called "New Age" and other cult beliefs, I was in horror at the pride many of them had at working on broadcasting their sex thoughts via kundalini and other methods. And you wonder why so many children are beset by victimization. This is just one example of how you should not emit that kind of garbage (it hits more than you intended) plus it prevents you from having natural levees against intrusive thoughts later when YOU need protection.
I hope this helps. Too late, but what the hell.
Showing posts with label Christian meditation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Christian meditation. Show all posts
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Saturday, January 2, 2010
Spiritual envy: A grave & very common sin
If I had to name the top three most common and deadly forms of sin in modern society today, the sin of spiritual envy would be in that top three.
Spiritual envy is when one is jealous of and wishes harm to someone who one perceives has spiritual gifts that they "do not deserve" (but you do, supposedly, yourself). Spiritual envy is an especially grave form of sin because it violates two of the Ten Commandments at once. One is guilty of both coveting what your neighbor has, but also one is guilty of taking the Lord's name in vain, as you are appointing yourself the judge of another person's gift from God, which like grace he alone can give, which is their spirituality. Another dimension of taking the Lord God's name in vain is that you feel that you can "decide" what spiritual gifts are "appropriate," which "should" and "can" be "given."
Frankly, little surprises me, but I have been stunned by the level of spiritual envy and the resulting depth of evil, mortal sin that an astonishingly many people have fallen into today.
One of the evil fruits of spiritual envy is that a secondary tier of people are led astray by the primary sinners, as these secondary people think that, therefore, grace and spiritual gifts from God may be attained, earned, merited and apportioned through "deeds" and "works." This entire second tier of people are thus contaminated by the sins of the first tier of spiritual envy.
You see, blaspheming is not "swearing" or "cussing." The Jews accused Jesus of blasphemy and Jesus was certainly not cussing and sassing. No, blasphemy is the presumption that you, a human, controls any even smallest part of God's divinity, authority, primacy and control. The Jews flipped their lids when Jesus started to reveal who he truly was, which is not only the Messiah (which they could have handled, as they have been awaiting a Messiah), but the Savior in the form of the fully authorized designated Son of God.
Do you notice none of the religious class were ever "happy" when Jesus performed a miracle? Putting aside their doctrinal differences with Jesus, would they not have praised God when a blind man is cured, even if Jesus was the instrument? No, they really did not care if someone's suffering (to say nothing of the thousands who Jesus did cure) was eased. They only cared about 1) "where" Jesus "really" got his power from and 2) envying his power.
Spiritual envy causes an enormous mudslide of consequences and likely damnation because it is like a conveyor belt of sin, an avalanche of blasphemy. You've seen the cascading effect as I illustrate it here, but I am just getting started in laying the truth out for you of the behavior of these people. I am tackling this issue today not simply because I have suffered from persecution by those who spiritually envy me for many, many years (it was first confessed, not sorrowfully but matter of fact accusingly, openly to me in the mid-1990's by some supposed "psychics" and "astrologers" a "friend" had urged me to "meet"), but because while space in hell is vast, accommodating more than needed, I still to this day wish that people would repent and not doom themselves and others to go there. In addition to this spiritual concern, on the secular side spiritual envy has caused much day to day grief, misery, depression and destruction of the goodness of actual flesh and blood physical and emotional life in society today. So I think this is a very apt topic to finally understand, for me to nail it to the door of your bogus "beliefs," and to help all of you who are innocent out there to understand what is being done around you, to you, and to your children.
So let me summarize the "chain reaction" we have discussed already, before adding the further explanation of the next links and consequences:
1. A person or a group envies another person or group for perceived spiritual "gifts." So the first unworthy link is the sin of envy. Scripture does state (as I've blogged about before) that even the thoughts, not even necessarily followed up by deeds, are sins.
2. A person or a group covets another person or group for perceived spiritual "gifts." This is the sin of coveting and it has two branches which may take place together or separately. One is that the person or group tries to "take away" the spiritual gift of the envied party and/or the person or group now tries to create a "mechanism" (like a tech or rites) where they believe they can usurp God and become the dispenser of his gifts.
3. Covet people who target the people they envy now commit a cascade of other sins, such as theft, oppression, assault and battery, and even murder, as they "attempt" to "take control" of the envied's supposed spiritual gifts. ("Let's see how your 'spiritual gifts' protect you now" is the mentality, and then they maim, persecute, isolate and even kill the other person). (By the way, imagine how God feels about all this so far, and we're not even into the worst of it).
4. Covet people then proclaim that they have the "real" "spiritual gifts" and, more importantly, "access to them," and they then commit the grave sin of not only blasphemy but they become formalized false prophets. (They are no longer crazy Uncle Ernie who speaks in tongues but they now incorporate and take people's money and rob their souls and their access to authentic faith).
5. Covet people then scour the holy scriptures of traditional faiths, including those with faith in the one true God, seeking "justification" for their own "spiritual gift" factories. Thus they now highlight certain parts of scripture they feel justified their own sins and cover up and ignore (both willfully and by mistake) parts of scripture that condemns most clearly their false and sinful mindsets. Thus they skew even authentic preaching and ministries by providing materials that emphasize an unbalanced understanding of scripture. MUCH modern material is like that. And friends, what I will explain in my next posting on this subject, of how the Blessed Virgin Mary was one of the first victims of this scriptural skewing, omission, and profane "massaging" of the message of the scriptures. Once you see how Mary has been a victim of the covet people's agenda, you will see (with a falling heart) how your day to day life has likewise been affected by this.
It all starts with feeling envy toward another person's real or presumed "goodness." It is like the atom bomb, which starts with the fission of one atom, or the smashing of two, it starts so small and causes profound irreversible destruction.
So before I blog the next section of these thoughts, please uproot in your mind and your heart any thoughts (and certainly any deeds) of spiritual envy, no matter how small, toward anyone, no matter what you "think," because it is not only destructive but you are presuming upon God's authority and mercy. Want to mediate? Like to chant "Om?" Well, start by chanting that you will not envy anyone for anything, but most especially their "spiritual gifts."
[Hi young people! Quite a mess we have here, don't we? Thinking of you and hoping you are having a good day and weekend.]
Spiritual envy is when one is jealous of and wishes harm to someone who one perceives has spiritual gifts that they "do not deserve" (but you do, supposedly, yourself). Spiritual envy is an especially grave form of sin because it violates two of the Ten Commandments at once. One is guilty of both coveting what your neighbor has, but also one is guilty of taking the Lord's name in vain, as you are appointing yourself the judge of another person's gift from God, which like grace he alone can give, which is their spirituality. Another dimension of taking the Lord God's name in vain is that you feel that you can "decide" what spiritual gifts are "appropriate," which "should" and "can" be "given."
Frankly, little surprises me, but I have been stunned by the level of spiritual envy and the resulting depth of evil, mortal sin that an astonishingly many people have fallen into today.
One of the evil fruits of spiritual envy is that a secondary tier of people are led astray by the primary sinners, as these secondary people think that, therefore, grace and spiritual gifts from God may be attained, earned, merited and apportioned through "deeds" and "works." This entire second tier of people are thus contaminated by the sins of the first tier of spiritual envy.
You see, blaspheming is not "swearing" or "cussing." The Jews accused Jesus of blasphemy and Jesus was certainly not cussing and sassing. No, blasphemy is the presumption that you, a human, controls any even smallest part of God's divinity, authority, primacy and control. The Jews flipped their lids when Jesus started to reveal who he truly was, which is not only the Messiah (which they could have handled, as they have been awaiting a Messiah), but the Savior in the form of the fully authorized designated Son of God.
Do you notice none of the religious class were ever "happy" when Jesus performed a miracle? Putting aside their doctrinal differences with Jesus, would they not have praised God when a blind man is cured, even if Jesus was the instrument? No, they really did not care if someone's suffering (to say nothing of the thousands who Jesus did cure) was eased. They only cared about 1) "where" Jesus "really" got his power from and 2) envying his power.
Spiritual envy causes an enormous mudslide of consequences and likely damnation because it is like a conveyor belt of sin, an avalanche of blasphemy. You've seen the cascading effect as I illustrate it here, but I am just getting started in laying the truth out for you of the behavior of these people. I am tackling this issue today not simply because I have suffered from persecution by those who spiritually envy me for many, many years (it was first confessed, not sorrowfully but matter of fact accusingly, openly to me in the mid-1990's by some supposed "psychics" and "astrologers" a "friend" had urged me to "meet"), but because while space in hell is vast, accommodating more than needed, I still to this day wish that people would repent and not doom themselves and others to go there. In addition to this spiritual concern, on the secular side spiritual envy has caused much day to day grief, misery, depression and destruction of the goodness of actual flesh and blood physical and emotional life in society today. So I think this is a very apt topic to finally understand, for me to nail it to the door of your bogus "beliefs," and to help all of you who are innocent out there to understand what is being done around you, to you, and to your children.
So let me summarize the "chain reaction" we have discussed already, before adding the further explanation of the next links and consequences:
1. A person or a group envies another person or group for perceived spiritual "gifts." So the first unworthy link is the sin of envy. Scripture does state (as I've blogged about before) that even the thoughts, not even necessarily followed up by deeds, are sins.
2. A person or a group covets another person or group for perceived spiritual "gifts." This is the sin of coveting and it has two branches which may take place together or separately. One is that the person or group tries to "take away" the spiritual gift of the envied party and/or the person or group now tries to create a "mechanism" (like a tech or rites) where they believe they can usurp God and become the dispenser of his gifts.
3. Covet people who target the people they envy now commit a cascade of other sins, such as theft, oppression, assault and battery, and even murder, as they "attempt" to "take control" of the envied's supposed spiritual gifts. ("Let's see how your 'spiritual gifts' protect you now" is the mentality, and then they maim, persecute, isolate and even kill the other person). (By the way, imagine how God feels about all this so far, and we're not even into the worst of it).
4. Covet people then proclaim that they have the "real" "spiritual gifts" and, more importantly, "access to them," and they then commit the grave sin of not only blasphemy but they become formalized false prophets. (They are no longer crazy Uncle Ernie who speaks in tongues but they now incorporate and take people's money and rob their souls and their access to authentic faith).
5. Covet people then scour the holy scriptures of traditional faiths, including those with faith in the one true God, seeking "justification" for their own "spiritual gift" factories. Thus they now highlight certain parts of scripture they feel justified their own sins and cover up and ignore (both willfully and by mistake) parts of scripture that condemns most clearly their false and sinful mindsets. Thus they skew even authentic preaching and ministries by providing materials that emphasize an unbalanced understanding of scripture. MUCH modern material is like that. And friends, what I will explain in my next posting on this subject, of how the Blessed Virgin Mary was one of the first victims of this scriptural skewing, omission, and profane "massaging" of the message of the scriptures. Once you see how Mary has been a victim of the covet people's agenda, you will see (with a falling heart) how your day to day life has likewise been affected by this.
It all starts with feeling envy toward another person's real or presumed "goodness." It is like the atom bomb, which starts with the fission of one atom, or the smashing of two, it starts so small and causes profound irreversible destruction.
So before I blog the next section of these thoughts, please uproot in your mind and your heart any thoughts (and certainly any deeds) of spiritual envy, no matter how small, toward anyone, no matter what you "think," because it is not only destructive but you are presuming upon God's authority and mercy. Want to mediate? Like to chant "Om?" Well, start by chanting that you will not envy anyone for anything, but most especially their "spiritual gifts."
[Hi young people! Quite a mess we have here, don't we? Thinking of you and hoping you are having a good day and weekend.]
Friday, December 25, 2009
Christmas meditation
I'd like you to think about something, so I'm presenting it as a meditation, one that is easily applicable to anyone who believes in the one true God and the Holy Spirit. It's particularly appropriate to think about on Christmas Day, however, it is something that I try to explain to people in my spiritual direction ministry all the time.
While the Holy Spirit must and needs to be defined in a number of ways in order to be truthfully understood, there is a meditative image that is also proper and essential, which is to think of the Holy Spirit as God breathing outward and exuding pure love.
Many Christians think that they understand God's love because they are grateful to God for the gift of salvation, after suffering and rejection on their behalf, of God the Father's Son Jesus Christ. Friends, here is what I am trying to share with you. Even if you fully understand and appreciate God's love in the form of Jesus Christ's love for you and sacrifice on your behalf, you only understand a fraction of God's love.
Loving God through Jesus Christ is good and it is correct, but understand it this way. To consider yourself completely aware of God's love only through the gift of Jesus Christ is like loving your parent because he or she gave to you an awesome and perfect present. You are still in danger of only loving your parent, and in this case God, because he gave you the best gift that you ever had. You still are not loving God, and thus, not feeling in return, all of God's love that you could experience, just as you are not appreciating the parent for all that he or she does because of the awesome one time for all gift.
In other words, I am telling you that you can understand and experience God's love directly, which is the source of the gift of Jesus Christ. In addition to loving God for having given to you, to all of you, Jesus Christ, you should also love God, and receive his love, simply for being God day after day, minute after minute. God is constantly exuding, through the Holy Spirit, a purity and constancy of love that few, except the most special saints through the ages, have comprehended even exists. But the Bible is complete with beautiful words, often those of God himself, expressing his love before he sent the best gift of his love in the form of Jesus Christ.
Do not love God because he gives you things, either real or imaginary (as you assume to have "abilities" that you presume are from the Spirit) because even as correct or well intentioned that love is, it is only a fraction of the entire spectrum of love that constantly beams down from God in the heavens upon you. That is another useful analogy. Loving God for all he has given to you is good, and correct, but if you love God only for the good things you have received (or hope to receive) it is like loving just the yellow visible band of light in the light spectrum, without loving the light itself.
If one experiences even for a few seconds a genuine acceptance and reciprocation of God's pure love through the Holy Spirit, it is amazing beyond belief and makes all other imagined loves (and transcendental experiences) fade in comparison into nothingness... but here's the thing. God's pure love through the Holy Spirit does not rival earthly attachments but enhances them in their goodness too. In other words, you do not become addicted to being totally within God's love through the Holy Spirit, rather, you are able and empowered to experience genuine earthly love... you do not need continual "hits" in order to carry on. Once one realizes in one's heart the amount of love that is available from God through his Holy Spirit, it does not have to be "re-administered" as if it were a ritual or a "high," but it makes you aware of the light in its fullness, even as you continue to live in the partial reality of material and earthly life.
When you feel the pureness of the Holy Spirit's God bearing love for you, it rocks your world and changes you forever. Rather than detaching and diminishing it makes you more protected and secure within actual reality, including life in an imperfect world. Too many modern "meditations" lead people away from attachment to the source of all pure love, which is God through his Holy Spirit. As one thinks one is reaching spiritual enlightenment and spiritual strengthening, one is actually detaching not only from the reality of the world, but the reality of God's personal and individual love available to you.
Here is another analogy to help. Suppose that your mother gave you an awesome gift, the best gift you could ever have, and it is a good thing to have, for it is godly and worthy. But suppose by having that gift you are immensely grateful to her for giving it to you, but you forget about all the times she bound your wounds when you fell, encouraged you in your homework, gave you hugs and kisses even when you considered yourself too grown up for them, when she went without new things of her own in order to provide for you, etc. You have become so blinded by the one awesome gift that she gave to you that you no longer notice how she does the other 99 percent of the time things of love and sacrifice FOR you, not given to you. Likewise you could love your father for something great that he gave to you, but forget that he labors in a job he detests but endures in order to support you.
That's how it often is with God. Even the most godly person is overwhelmed with gratitude for God's gift of the Savior Jesus Christ so much so that he or she no longer gives or seeks God's day to day love, in its most awesome and even knee shaking form, the pure love of God given to you through the Holy Spirit. It's like even the most godly people are so focused on being (correctly) grateful to God and the things he has given to them (both individually and also in the form of the Savior) that they never experience and thus do not feel even a fraction of the awesome purity of God's love like a beam of the purest gold and silver enfolding them in wings. If you catch the Holy Spirit's eye in genuine love, not trying to "summon" its "force," the purity of love will just about bowl you over and it will change you and your understanding of God forever.
While the Holy Spirit must and needs to be defined in a number of ways in order to be truthfully understood, there is a meditative image that is also proper and essential, which is to think of the Holy Spirit as God breathing outward and exuding pure love.
Many Christians think that they understand God's love because they are grateful to God for the gift of salvation, after suffering and rejection on their behalf, of God the Father's Son Jesus Christ. Friends, here is what I am trying to share with you. Even if you fully understand and appreciate God's love in the form of Jesus Christ's love for you and sacrifice on your behalf, you only understand a fraction of God's love.
Loving God through Jesus Christ is good and it is correct, but understand it this way. To consider yourself completely aware of God's love only through the gift of Jesus Christ is like loving your parent because he or she gave to you an awesome and perfect present. You are still in danger of only loving your parent, and in this case God, because he gave you the best gift that you ever had. You still are not loving God, and thus, not feeling in return, all of God's love that you could experience, just as you are not appreciating the parent for all that he or she does because of the awesome one time for all gift.
In other words, I am telling you that you can understand and experience God's love directly, which is the source of the gift of Jesus Christ. In addition to loving God for having given to you, to all of you, Jesus Christ, you should also love God, and receive his love, simply for being God day after day, minute after minute. God is constantly exuding, through the Holy Spirit, a purity and constancy of love that few, except the most special saints through the ages, have comprehended even exists. But the Bible is complete with beautiful words, often those of God himself, expressing his love before he sent the best gift of his love in the form of Jesus Christ.
Do not love God because he gives you things, either real or imaginary (as you assume to have "abilities" that you presume are from the Spirit) because even as correct or well intentioned that love is, it is only a fraction of the entire spectrum of love that constantly beams down from God in the heavens upon you. That is another useful analogy. Loving God for all he has given to you is good, and correct, but if you love God only for the good things you have received (or hope to receive) it is like loving just the yellow visible band of light in the light spectrum, without loving the light itself.
If one experiences even for a few seconds a genuine acceptance and reciprocation of God's pure love through the Holy Spirit, it is amazing beyond belief and makes all other imagined loves (and transcendental experiences) fade in comparison into nothingness... but here's the thing. God's pure love through the Holy Spirit does not rival earthly attachments but enhances them in their goodness too. In other words, you do not become addicted to being totally within God's love through the Holy Spirit, rather, you are able and empowered to experience genuine earthly love... you do not need continual "hits" in order to carry on. Once one realizes in one's heart the amount of love that is available from God through his Holy Spirit, it does not have to be "re-administered" as if it were a ritual or a "high," but it makes you aware of the light in its fullness, even as you continue to live in the partial reality of material and earthly life.
When you feel the pureness of the Holy Spirit's God bearing love for you, it rocks your world and changes you forever. Rather than detaching and diminishing it makes you more protected and secure within actual reality, including life in an imperfect world. Too many modern "meditations" lead people away from attachment to the source of all pure love, which is God through his Holy Spirit. As one thinks one is reaching spiritual enlightenment and spiritual strengthening, one is actually detaching not only from the reality of the world, but the reality of God's personal and individual love available to you.
Here is another analogy to help. Suppose that your mother gave you an awesome gift, the best gift you could ever have, and it is a good thing to have, for it is godly and worthy. But suppose by having that gift you are immensely grateful to her for giving it to you, but you forget about all the times she bound your wounds when you fell, encouraged you in your homework, gave you hugs and kisses even when you considered yourself too grown up for them, when she went without new things of her own in order to provide for you, etc. You have become so blinded by the one awesome gift that she gave to you that you no longer notice how she does the other 99 percent of the time things of love and sacrifice FOR you, not given to you. Likewise you could love your father for something great that he gave to you, but forget that he labors in a job he detests but endures in order to support you.
That's how it often is with God. Even the most godly person is overwhelmed with gratitude for God's gift of the Savior Jesus Christ so much so that he or she no longer gives or seeks God's day to day love, in its most awesome and even knee shaking form, the pure love of God given to you through the Holy Spirit. It's like even the most godly people are so focused on being (correctly) grateful to God and the things he has given to them (both individually and also in the form of the Savior) that they never experience and thus do not feel even a fraction of the awesome purity of God's love like a beam of the purest gold and silver enfolding them in wings. If you catch the Holy Spirit's eye in genuine love, not trying to "summon" its "force," the purity of love will just about bowl you over and it will change you and your understanding of God forever.
Friday, January 2, 2009
How to have a Christian spiritual meditation
Here I’m going to demonstrate for you how one can have a mystical contemplation of the Cross, one that is based on numbers. I have blogged much about how people misuse numbers and misuse spirituality, but use of the term misuse (as in using something improperly) implies that there are proper ways to do these things. I love meditation, mysticism and numbers! But I am very strict that they only be used in a God centered and spirit lifting way, not as props for human ego. So here is an exercise I’ve developed for you, an example of how one can meditate on the mysteries of Jesus Christ and the Cross, using numbers, in a God centered way.
With this meditation I am also making a second point. Protestants tend to not represent the body of Christ on the cross, while Catholics display and venerate the crucifixion, the cross with the body of Christ. This meditation will demonstrate that depictions are important and how a minimalist modern “progressive” use of the symbol actually curtails the richness of the meditative spiritual experience. In other words, this meditation unfolds but completes very quickly if one is only pondering the Cross without the corpus.
1 There is only one cross.
2 There are two axes of the cross, vertical and horizontal.
3 The one cross unites the ground and the sky.
At this point one rather runs out of meditation, since one is only contemplating the Cross without contemplating Christ. Here is how Catholic mystics would develop this meditation on the Cross that is the crucifixion.
1 There is only one Jesus Christ.
2 Jesus Christ and the wooden cross.
3 There are three nails.
4 Christ, the Cross, the ground and the sky.
5 The three nails, the lance piercing the side and the crown of thorns.
6 Three nails through three positions on Christ’s body, each hand and the combined feet.
7 Christ, the Cross, the ground, the sky and three nails affix them together.
8 The arms and legs of Christ and the four arms of the Cross.
9 Christ, nail and Cross three times.
10 Christ, nail and Cross three times, and the Cross is placed in the ground like a nail.
11 Christ, nail and Cross three times, the Cross is placed in the ground like a nail, and Christ’s gaze up to heaven.
12 Christ, nail and Cross three times, the Cross like a nail in the ground, Christ’s gaze up to heaven, and his Mother, from whose womb he was born, stands beside him.
13 Christ, nail and Cross three times, the Cross like a nail in the ground, Christ’s gaze up to heaven, his Mother who he emerged from beside him and John the Apostle that he loved stands beside him. (Later John will be the fastest Apostle to arrive running to the tomb of the resurrected Christ).
14 The seven last words of Christ, the three nails, the lance piecing the side and the crown of thorns, the ground and the sky, all bound together.
15 Christ, nail and Cross three times, the Cross like a nail in the ground, Christ’s gaze up to heaven, Mary his Mother, John the Apostle, and the two thieves crucified on either side of Christ.
16 Christ, nail and Cross three times, the Cross like a nail in the ground, Christ’s gaze up to heaven, Mary his Mother, John the Apostle, the two thieves crucified on either side of Christ, and the Temple on the horizon.
17 Christ, nail and Cross three times, the Cross like a nail in the ground, Christ’s gaze up to heaven, Mary his Mother, John the Apostle, the two thieves crucified on either side of Christ, the Temple on the horizon, and the city of Jerusalem.
You see? You can go on and find every number in this meditation of the crucified Christ, and all this does is to safely unfold more and more of the mystery and the glorification of God. This is the difference between focusing on numbers and becoming overly fascinated by them to the point of giving them a reality that does not exist, and using a love of numbers to glorify God and unfold a richness of a spiritual meditative experience and learning. That is also one of my objectives in developing this meditation, to help people who are "counters" and overly fascinated with the meaning of numbers to have a proactive way to restore balance. With this meditation you see that all numbers are located in the Crucifixion, and thus there are no good, bad, missing or controlling "numbers." Numbers or, rather, the ability to count are another gift from God to humans to make their day to day life easier, but also to use in spiritually uplifting ways that remain God focused, opening up greater understanding, spirituality and mysticism rather than binding and narrowing it down due to the slavery of superstitious thinking.
I hope that you use this meditation in your own devotions. Ponder it as I presented it, and then further develop it in your own unique way, always keeping the mind, heart and focus on the glory of God rather than the meditative tools themselves.
With this meditation I am also making a second point. Protestants tend to not represent the body of Christ on the cross, while Catholics display and venerate the crucifixion, the cross with the body of Christ. This meditation will demonstrate that depictions are important and how a minimalist modern “progressive” use of the symbol actually curtails the richness of the meditative spiritual experience. In other words, this meditation unfolds but completes very quickly if one is only pondering the Cross without the corpus.
1 There is only one cross.
2 There are two axes of the cross, vertical and horizontal.
3 The one cross unites the ground and the sky.
At this point one rather runs out of meditation, since one is only contemplating the Cross without contemplating Christ. Here is how Catholic mystics would develop this meditation on the Cross that is the crucifixion.
1 There is only one Jesus Christ.
2 Jesus Christ and the wooden cross.
3 There are three nails.
4 Christ, the Cross, the ground and the sky.
5 The three nails, the lance piercing the side and the crown of thorns.
6 Three nails through three positions on Christ’s body, each hand and the combined feet.
7 Christ, the Cross, the ground, the sky and three nails affix them together.
8 The arms and legs of Christ and the four arms of the Cross.
9 Christ, nail and Cross three times.
10 Christ, nail and Cross three times, and the Cross is placed in the ground like a nail.
11 Christ, nail and Cross three times, the Cross is placed in the ground like a nail, and Christ’s gaze up to heaven.
12 Christ, nail and Cross three times, the Cross like a nail in the ground, Christ’s gaze up to heaven, and his Mother, from whose womb he was born, stands beside him.
13 Christ, nail and Cross three times, the Cross like a nail in the ground, Christ’s gaze up to heaven, his Mother who he emerged from beside him and John the Apostle that he loved stands beside him. (Later John will be the fastest Apostle to arrive running to the tomb of the resurrected Christ).
14 The seven last words of Christ, the three nails, the lance piecing the side and the crown of thorns, the ground and the sky, all bound together.
15 Christ, nail and Cross three times, the Cross like a nail in the ground, Christ’s gaze up to heaven, Mary his Mother, John the Apostle, and the two thieves crucified on either side of Christ.
16 Christ, nail and Cross three times, the Cross like a nail in the ground, Christ’s gaze up to heaven, Mary his Mother, John the Apostle, the two thieves crucified on either side of Christ, and the Temple on the horizon.
17 Christ, nail and Cross three times, the Cross like a nail in the ground, Christ’s gaze up to heaven, Mary his Mother, John the Apostle, the two thieves crucified on either side of Christ, the Temple on the horizon, and the city of Jerusalem.
You see? You can go on and find every number in this meditation of the crucified Christ, and all this does is to safely unfold more and more of the mystery and the glorification of God. This is the difference between focusing on numbers and becoming overly fascinated by them to the point of giving them a reality that does not exist, and using a love of numbers to glorify God and unfold a richness of a spiritual meditative experience and learning. That is also one of my objectives in developing this meditation, to help people who are "counters" and overly fascinated with the meaning of numbers to have a proactive way to restore balance. With this meditation you see that all numbers are located in the Crucifixion, and thus there are no good, bad, missing or controlling "numbers." Numbers or, rather, the ability to count are another gift from God to humans to make their day to day life easier, but also to use in spiritually uplifting ways that remain God focused, opening up greater understanding, spirituality and mysticism rather than binding and narrowing it down due to the slavery of superstitious thinking.
I hope that you use this meditation in your own devotions. Ponder it as I presented it, and then further develop it in your own unique way, always keeping the mind, heart and focus on the glory of God rather than the meditative tools themselves.
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