Contemplations
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Contemplation archives |
In-Between the Midnight Hour
by Rev. Reingard Knausenberger
It happens only once every year that we gather in the midnight hour around our altars. This holy act of transubstantiation is only celebrated with the rising sun. In this simple fact the deep mystery connecting the high Sun Spirit with the Son of Man in His human becomingness is expressed.
When we observe with mindfulness the might of transformation which occurs as the sun rises, it is relatively easy to then connect inwardly with a power of soul which can rise up with a similar quality to overcome its own dark challenges. This sense of transformation permeates every dawning morning and can be lifted into full participating awareness during an Act of Consecration of Man.
Now, this One Time, when the candles are lit for the Act of Consecration in the mid-night transition from Advent to Christmas, the perception is more: now this celebration is not only for the rising of the coming day and the individual human being, now its power emanates into the whole arising year ahead.
When exactly does a setting sun become a rising sun?
When does an out-breath become an in-breath?
What happens in this mysterious space in-between,
It happens only once every year that we gather in the midnight hour around our altars. This holy act of transubstantiation is only celebrated with the rising sun. In this simple fact the deep mystery connecting the high Sun Spirit with the Son of Man in His human becomingness is expressed.
When we observe with mindfulness the might of transformation which occurs as the sun rises, it is relatively easy to then connect inwardly with a power of soul which can rise up with a similar quality to overcome its own dark challenges. This sense of transformation permeates every dawning morning and can be lifted into full participating awareness during an Act of Consecration of Man.
Now, this One Time, when the candles are lit for the Act of Consecration in the mid-night transition from Advent to Christmas, the perception is more: now this celebration is not only for the rising of the coming day and the individual human being, now its power emanates into the whole arising year ahead.
When exactly does a setting sun become a rising sun?
When does an out-breath become an in-breath?
What happens in this mysterious space in-between,
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in the pause,
in the emptiness, in the waiting, - - |
What makes the tide turn?
Maybe this is the question that the midnight hour of Christmas opens up deep and wide; and maybe why a developing sense for the In-Between can be essential to the birthing of the Christ-Impulse.
Maybe this is the question that the midnight hour of Christmas opens up deep and wide; and maybe why a developing sense for the In-Between can be essential to the birthing of the Christ-Impulse.
Closure?
by Rev. Malcolm Allsop
The show or play draws to its climax, the actors take their bows and the curtains close. We, the audience, return home, free to reflect … and forget, as we will and as life’s schedules allow.
The ‘media theatre’ also presents us with plays, dramas, often extending over days or weeks, which we are free to follow and engage in, or not, as we choose. The difference is that the actors are not actors but people in real life, in real life situations and dramas. And when the story is over for the media, it is unlikely to be over for the real life actors who have been trailed, quizzed and photographed on our behalf.
Actors on stage, the lighting technicians and the supporting team go home, much as the audience does. Those who leave the courtroom after their own trial, the trial of a loved one, the trial of someone’s aggressor, are quickly ‘switched off’, substituted with a new drama. But even if they might be glad that the cameras and media now focus elsewhere, the ‘show’ is for them potentially only just beginning. Rebuilding a life, starting anew, recognising mistakes, take more time than the media has. (Even the playwright would condense the process.)
Particular attention is often directed towards a person when they die, when the ‘curtain closes on their life’. Family, friends and wider circles reflect on that life, celebrating the achievements and the particular human qualities that stood out in that person. And then, the word so often heard in recent years, ‘closure’ is sought. (In stark contrast to the grave inscriptions such as, “Grandpa, we will never forget you”.) Closure for whom? Certainly not for the one who dies, who will also be reflecting on their earthly life, achievements, etc. But for that soul, beyond the ‘curtain’ life also continues! Lest we forget….
The show or play draws to its climax, the actors take their bows and the curtains close. We, the audience, return home, free to reflect … and forget, as we will and as life’s schedules allow.
The ‘media theatre’ also presents us with plays, dramas, often extending over days or weeks, which we are free to follow and engage in, or not, as we choose. The difference is that the actors are not actors but people in real life, in real life situations and dramas. And when the story is over for the media, it is unlikely to be over for the real life actors who have been trailed, quizzed and photographed on our behalf.
Actors on stage, the lighting technicians and the supporting team go home, much as the audience does. Those who leave the courtroom after their own trial, the trial of a loved one, the trial of someone’s aggressor, are quickly ‘switched off’, substituted with a new drama. But even if they might be glad that the cameras and media now focus elsewhere, the ‘show’ is for them potentially only just beginning. Rebuilding a life, starting anew, recognising mistakes, take more time than the media has. (Even the playwright would condense the process.)
Particular attention is often directed towards a person when they die, when the ‘curtain closes on their life’. Family, friends and wider circles reflect on that life, celebrating the achievements and the particular human qualities that stood out in that person. And then, the word so often heard in recent years, ‘closure’ is sought. (In stark contrast to the grave inscriptions such as, “Grandpa, we will never forget you”.) Closure for whom? Certainly not for the one who dies, who will also be reflecting on their earthly life, achievements, etc. But for that soul, beyond the ‘curtain’ life also continues! Lest we forget….
The Expansion of Consciousness
by Rev. Reingard Knausenberger
How magnificent to have a cloudless blue sky above. How different when there is a homogenous grey cloud cover. Do we take note? Yet one day, when the sky is populated with clouds, moving, piling, stretching, shaping, dissolving and forming, we might suddenly stop and stare. Now it has become interesting. What is happening in this interplay of light and cloud that wasn't there before?
As the sunlight filters through the clouds in rays from above, in between and behind them, an extraordinary new possibility and expansion takes place. Something quite archetypal is unfolding before our eyes. We are watching how new spaces appear where there were none before, and disappear. Different dimensions and depths, manifold shades of grey and colour create themselves purely through light and resistance to light.
Then to realize: everything in this material world has the purpose of giving resistance, including our own body. That is its nature.
The light of consciousness we take for granted is dependent on this fact. If there were no resistance no light could appear, neither as visible daylight, nor in its inward form as consciousness.
What would happen if we allowed ourselves to approach every kind of resistance ("problem"), whether inner, outer, emotional, mental, with others, etc., with the conviction that this is the opportunity for our light to shine. Might the resistances and restrictions we experience daily be the creative possibilities life offers us for the expansion of our consciousness into new depths of reality, challenging us to shine like sunlight shining into clouds?
How magnificent to have a cloudless blue sky above. How different when there is a homogenous grey cloud cover. Do we take note? Yet one day, when the sky is populated with clouds, moving, piling, stretching, shaping, dissolving and forming, we might suddenly stop and stare. Now it has become interesting. What is happening in this interplay of light and cloud that wasn't there before?
As the sunlight filters through the clouds in rays from above, in between and behind them, an extraordinary new possibility and expansion takes place. Something quite archetypal is unfolding before our eyes. We are watching how new spaces appear where there were none before, and disappear. Different dimensions and depths, manifold shades of grey and colour create themselves purely through light and resistance to light.
Then to realize: everything in this material world has the purpose of giving resistance, including our own body. That is its nature.
The light of consciousness we take for granted is dependent on this fact. If there were no resistance no light could appear, neither as visible daylight, nor in its inward form as consciousness.
What would happen if we allowed ourselves to approach every kind of resistance ("problem"), whether inner, outer, emotional, mental, with others, etc., with the conviction that this is the opportunity for our light to shine. Might the resistances and restrictions we experience daily be the creative possibilities life offers us for the expansion of our consciousness into new depths of reality, challenging us to shine like sunlight shining into clouds?
Time
by Rev. Malcolm Allsop
Past, present and future are our three basic experiences of time in day-time consciousness. To a greater or lesser extent they are part of the bridge which a spiritual-religious path builds, to extend beyond physical consciousness. Looking at various paths and practices it is usually apparent whether the emphasis lies more with the foundation of the past, the present or the future, for nurturing a particular spiritual-religious practice.
Examples will immediately spring to mind of groupings who look to the past for orientation and for their connection with the divine. Laws and commandments going back hundreds of years and longer, which are central to continued worship and life-traditions. Ancestral worship, where the forefathers, through their wisdom and proximity to the divine, are a source of continued contact for the descendants. Many Christians have a strong focus on the Old Testament, sometimes almost more than on the New.
Focusing on the present is central to the meditative life and, to a certain extent, to the life of prayer. The moment of the present can be opened up, pushing back the encroaching thoughts and content relating to the past or what might lie ahead, to create a space into which the ‘timeless’ can enter. That may be imaginations, meditative content in the form of words, thought or prayer content, which one places into the created space. The latter doesn’t, of course, have to be a prayer for something to happen, (or not to happen as the case may), in the future. In the first instance it is a ‘communing with the spirit’, with God, where one remains in that open space which has been created in the present.
Similarly, some religious groups will focus particularly on the future. The interest is in the meaning of life on earth in relation to a goal, a future state of perfection, the overcoming of obstacles and shortcomings to reach, eg. The New Jerusalem, Nirvana, a return to the ‘Maker of all things’. The picture of the goal may vary, as will the steps called for to reach that better state, but the focus, the orientation is the same – looking ahead.
Past, present, future – “these strange brothers three”, as Michael Ende says of them in his story of Momo and the Timethieves. Where might an observer see The Christian Community as having its emphasis? It could well be seen as honouring all three: out of a sense for the greater biography of Man, of the earth and of the Christ-Being. There are the spiritual-physical roots of life extending back, far beyond the appearance of each human being at birth, or of the earth in the form in which we know it today, as well as a sense for the long preparation there must have been for Christ to be able to enter into earthly time and space. Then there are the immense possibilities for growth here and now, in the physical world, through transforming ideas into physical deeds. And thirdly, with a conviction that the end of life is not the end of the story, but that a soul and spiritual development continues beyond our earthly ‘demise’ ( and that of the planet as we know it), the future, the third of the brothers, is as important in the greater picture.
But – “Christ born in eternity” ? Don’t these words from the Creed imply that ultimately our focus, our Guide, is always coming towards us, meeting us, out of the future, at whatever point in time we find ourselves?
Past, present and future are our three basic experiences of time in day-time consciousness. To a greater or lesser extent they are part of the bridge which a spiritual-religious path builds, to extend beyond physical consciousness. Looking at various paths and practices it is usually apparent whether the emphasis lies more with the foundation of the past, the present or the future, for nurturing a particular spiritual-religious practice.
Examples will immediately spring to mind of groupings who look to the past for orientation and for their connection with the divine. Laws and commandments going back hundreds of years and longer, which are central to continued worship and life-traditions. Ancestral worship, where the forefathers, through their wisdom and proximity to the divine, are a source of continued contact for the descendants. Many Christians have a strong focus on the Old Testament, sometimes almost more than on the New.
Focusing on the present is central to the meditative life and, to a certain extent, to the life of prayer. The moment of the present can be opened up, pushing back the encroaching thoughts and content relating to the past or what might lie ahead, to create a space into which the ‘timeless’ can enter. That may be imaginations, meditative content in the form of words, thought or prayer content, which one places into the created space. The latter doesn’t, of course, have to be a prayer for something to happen, (or not to happen as the case may), in the future. In the first instance it is a ‘communing with the spirit’, with God, where one remains in that open space which has been created in the present.
Similarly, some religious groups will focus particularly on the future. The interest is in the meaning of life on earth in relation to a goal, a future state of perfection, the overcoming of obstacles and shortcomings to reach, eg. The New Jerusalem, Nirvana, a return to the ‘Maker of all things’. The picture of the goal may vary, as will the steps called for to reach that better state, but the focus, the orientation is the same – looking ahead.
Past, present, future – “these strange brothers three”, as Michael Ende says of them in his story of Momo and the Timethieves. Where might an observer see The Christian Community as having its emphasis? It could well be seen as honouring all three: out of a sense for the greater biography of Man, of the earth and of the Christ-Being. There are the spiritual-physical roots of life extending back, far beyond the appearance of each human being at birth, or of the earth in the form in which we know it today, as well as a sense for the long preparation there must have been for Christ to be able to enter into earthly time and space. Then there are the immense possibilities for growth here and now, in the physical world, through transforming ideas into physical deeds. And thirdly, with a conviction that the end of life is not the end of the story, but that a soul and spiritual development continues beyond our earthly ‘demise’ ( and that of the planet as we know it), the future, the third of the brothers, is as important in the greater picture.
But – “Christ born in eternity” ? Don’t these words from the Creed imply that ultimately our focus, our Guide, is always coming towards us, meeting us, out of the future, at whatever point in time we find ourselves?
Metanoiete – REthink, RElook, Turn Yourself around!
by Rev. Reingard Knausenberger
The past dissolves
The present engages
The future prepares
Rudolf Steiner
If we observe an hour-glass, watching the steady unstoppable stream of sand as it flows through the ‘eye’ of the glass in its mid-rift, a feeling of tension and haste can take over. It seems to make visible a feeling we know all too well and get caught up in during the day, too often. Looking again as the abundance from the upper glass diminishes, though, slowly a noticeable substance in the empty glass below begins to form and rise upward. This descending outpouring is met by an ever greater ascending motion.
From the pre-historical past of our evolution onwards the World of Spirit has streamed its powers and gifts into the earthly world and humankind in an incessant outpouring. Over time this manifested in its last stages in visible and eventually material forms. It instilled a sense in humankind of an endless reservoir of resources to draw on. Then came the historical moment when this heavenly abundance had reached its limit, when all that had been intended was gifted and invested into us and the earth. In that moment, when ‘the last grain of sand’, so to speak, was let go into its descent, the historical moment had arrived when the quintessential substance of the Spirit of Creation descended in the image of a dove into one specific human being on earth. From then on, this Spirit lived in the physical visible world, experiencing the whole gamut of human soul life and carrying this powerful Spirit-substance through human death into the realms of death.
What is death? A complete end and standstill of any form of life, a state of no future. Into these places of death the mighty Spirit of Creation could now reach through, (through the human body and soul giving access), and bring movement into them. Through this Spirit-power, what was dead could begin to dissolve. Where there was standstill, movement began. Where it was a total end, a new impulse began. With this Power of Life, what was finished could begin to rise up, preparing and creating a new realm of future evolving. Time was ‘turned around’ in that moment. A new goal and purpose for life had evolved. From thereon future is wrested from the realm of death, through the Power of Creation at work in human souls.
Whoever looks with open eyes into the world today knows the signs are ample that the resources of the earth are limited. Even in the cultural sphere of tradition it is clear there is no endless flow of abundant substance. It is time to rethink. With every investment there comes a hope for a return. Future is linked to that return. Even the heavenly world reckoned with and hopes for a return on its investment into humankind. ‘Metanoiete’ is maybe the most important concept we can take with us into the second half of the year. It is the call of John the Baptist: rethink, re-focus, turn around and see the other side. Change the direction of your intentions, of your desires and longings. Only you can do it, no one else for you. What matters from now on, if there is to be a future, is the quality and direction of what streams from individual human hearts into the world. Can our eyes and ears, our touch and taste include not only a material reality, but also a spirit-reality? Can we overcome and re-direct our thinking and doing towards a heavenly world at work and alive in the earthly world? It is a dusty, barren, lonely wintry path of inner disciplining to do this. Will it bear fruit? We don’t know. What we can know is: if I have made the effort today to turn myself around and plant a seed in eternity here and now.
The past dissolves
The present engages
The future prepares
Rudolf Steiner
If we observe an hour-glass, watching the steady unstoppable stream of sand as it flows through the ‘eye’ of the glass in its mid-rift, a feeling of tension and haste can take over. It seems to make visible a feeling we know all too well and get caught up in during the day, too often. Looking again as the abundance from the upper glass diminishes, though, slowly a noticeable substance in the empty glass below begins to form and rise upward. This descending outpouring is met by an ever greater ascending motion.
From the pre-historical past of our evolution onwards the World of Spirit has streamed its powers and gifts into the earthly world and humankind in an incessant outpouring. Over time this manifested in its last stages in visible and eventually material forms. It instilled a sense in humankind of an endless reservoir of resources to draw on. Then came the historical moment when this heavenly abundance had reached its limit, when all that had been intended was gifted and invested into us and the earth. In that moment, when ‘the last grain of sand’, so to speak, was let go into its descent, the historical moment had arrived when the quintessential substance of the Spirit of Creation descended in the image of a dove into one specific human being on earth. From then on, this Spirit lived in the physical visible world, experiencing the whole gamut of human soul life and carrying this powerful Spirit-substance through human death into the realms of death.
What is death? A complete end and standstill of any form of life, a state of no future. Into these places of death the mighty Spirit of Creation could now reach through, (through the human body and soul giving access), and bring movement into them. Through this Spirit-power, what was dead could begin to dissolve. Where there was standstill, movement began. Where it was a total end, a new impulse began. With this Power of Life, what was finished could begin to rise up, preparing and creating a new realm of future evolving. Time was ‘turned around’ in that moment. A new goal and purpose for life had evolved. From thereon future is wrested from the realm of death, through the Power of Creation at work in human souls.
Whoever looks with open eyes into the world today knows the signs are ample that the resources of the earth are limited. Even in the cultural sphere of tradition it is clear there is no endless flow of abundant substance. It is time to rethink. With every investment there comes a hope for a return. Future is linked to that return. Even the heavenly world reckoned with and hopes for a return on its investment into humankind. ‘Metanoiete’ is maybe the most important concept we can take with us into the second half of the year. It is the call of John the Baptist: rethink, re-focus, turn around and see the other side. Change the direction of your intentions, of your desires and longings. Only you can do it, no one else for you. What matters from now on, if there is to be a future, is the quality and direction of what streams from individual human hearts into the world. Can our eyes and ears, our touch and taste include not only a material reality, but also a spirit-reality? Can we overcome and re-direct our thinking and doing towards a heavenly world at work and alive in the earthly world? It is a dusty, barren, lonely wintry path of inner disciplining to do this. Will it bear fruit? We don’t know. What we can know is: if I have made the effort today to turn myself around and plant a seed in eternity here and now.
Contemplation
by Rev. Malcolm Allsop
The feast days of the saints number far more than there are days in the year to accommodate them, so numerous are those who have, through their actions, their inspiration and their ability to heal, furthered the path of mankind through their spiritual striving. In very many instances their healing influence has continued on long past their own time on earth. They could fairly be termed ambassadors of the spirit, bridge-builders between the invisible and the visible worlds.
With two exceptions all the feast days mark the death of that particular person, the point at which the efficacy of their life can be seen in its completeness and where the person starts to work from beyond the threshold as a bridge-builder, a spiritual ambassador. One of these exceptions is 24th June, the ‘feast day’ of John the Baptist, marking not his death but his birth, (six months before that of the Christ child). The other exception is in September when the birth of Mary is still celebrated in many churches today.
How can one best characterise the uniqueness of these two individualities – that is hinted at in the outer fact of their birthdays rather than their death days being turned to each year – in contrast with so many other ‘ambassadors’ of the spirit? The earthly mission of these two – John and Mary – stands in a completely different space to all those who followed. Their task was a once only ‘call of duty’ in the final stages necessary for Jesus and Christ to incarnate and open a new chapter of ‘bridge-building’ without which, communication and fructification between the visible and the invisible worlds would have continued its decline. The birth of John the Baptist and of Mary, the mother of Jesus, led to the reversal of that decline on the physical plane. To paraphrase a sentence from the Creed: since that time Christ is the enabler of the heavenly forces, the spiritual healing forces, working into and uniting with the earth and all that lives on it.
Out of that enabling have come the hundreds of recognised Saints, spiritual ambassadors, as well as the countless, innumerable examples, unknown or long forgotten – saints with no capital ‘S’ – who, up to and beyond our present time, are building the bridges between the two worlds to which we belong.
The feast days of the saints number far more than there are days in the year to accommodate them, so numerous are those who have, through their actions, their inspiration and their ability to heal, furthered the path of mankind through their spiritual striving. In very many instances their healing influence has continued on long past their own time on earth. They could fairly be termed ambassadors of the spirit, bridge-builders between the invisible and the visible worlds.
With two exceptions all the feast days mark the death of that particular person, the point at which the efficacy of their life can be seen in its completeness and where the person starts to work from beyond the threshold as a bridge-builder, a spiritual ambassador. One of these exceptions is 24th June, the ‘feast day’ of John the Baptist, marking not his death but his birth, (six months before that of the Christ child). The other exception is in September when the birth of Mary is still celebrated in many churches today.
How can one best characterise the uniqueness of these two individualities – that is hinted at in the outer fact of their birthdays rather than their death days being turned to each year – in contrast with so many other ‘ambassadors’ of the spirit? The earthly mission of these two – John and Mary – stands in a completely different space to all those who followed. Their task was a once only ‘call of duty’ in the final stages necessary for Jesus and Christ to incarnate and open a new chapter of ‘bridge-building’ without which, communication and fructification between the visible and the invisible worlds would have continued its decline. The birth of John the Baptist and of Mary, the mother of Jesus, led to the reversal of that decline on the physical plane. To paraphrase a sentence from the Creed: since that time Christ is the enabler of the heavenly forces, the spiritual healing forces, working into and uniting with the earth and all that lives on it.
Out of that enabling have come the hundreds of recognised Saints, spiritual ambassadors, as well as the countless, innumerable examples, unknown or long forgotten – saints with no capital ‘S’ – who, up to and beyond our present time, are building the bridges between the two worlds to which we belong.
John the Baptist Is Here Again
by Rev. Reingard Knausenberger
After the greatest of his baptisms, John continued to work with his followers as before. He did not become one of the disciples of Jesus. He knew he had his own mission of preparing the way and that at the baptism of Jesus he had acted as the Spirit of God had directed him. But he would send those who were prepared and ready to Jesus Christ to follow Him. After a while John fell a victim to the tyrant Herod and, at the request of Salome, the daughter of Herodias, was beheaded.
In this context a noteworthy detail is brought to us in the Gospel of Mark (chapter 6: 14): Herod hears what the twelve disciples of Jesus are doing at that time around and after John's death. These twelve had namely received the task to go out two by two into the towns and surrounding countryside and do themselves what they had experienced from their Master: to proclaim how the heavenly world is near and to heal. By taking on the challenge of this task in the absence of their Master, a public opinion forms around their actions which is contradictory. Yet when Herod hears of their activity he speaks a clear definitive judgement: 'That is John, whom I have beheaded. He is risen again.'
How can these few, just sent out, beginners learning what apostleship means, evoke such a response and have such impact? In their more or less tentative insecure doings, an experience of John the Baptist as if resurrected comes about?
When Jesus Christ sends them out (was it to test them?), they go. He himself remains behind in the stillness of solitude. During the half year that they are underway, they by necessity have to turn their back on Him who sent them and leave Him behind, yet wherever they go, they have experiences as if the way is prepared for them. What comes to them and who comes to them is meaningful and congruent with their purpose. Each has the experience as if another companion is with them, guiding angel-like above their heads, preparing their way. When they all return to the One who was all the while their centre and reference point, the amazement is profound as they realise, although going separate ways, they acted as a unified Spirit-community.
For those who live with the Act of Consecration of Man, this can be an experience that – beginners, learners, apostles on probation that we are – can become familiar.
After the celebration at the altar we, by necessity, must leave it all behind. Yet we can do this with a sense of Sending. While the essence of the experience remains behind in the solitude of stillness, it can remain as a central reference point, so that 'out there' where we are underway and at work, we might become sensitive to what and who comes to meet us, of synchronicity. Sometimes, here and there, in single encounters, between one person and another, a sense of companionship can light up, a feeling of being united in Spirit-community that could be identified as: John the Baptist is here again, holding his guiding wing over us.
After the greatest of his baptisms, John continued to work with his followers as before. He did not become one of the disciples of Jesus. He knew he had his own mission of preparing the way and that at the baptism of Jesus he had acted as the Spirit of God had directed him. But he would send those who were prepared and ready to Jesus Christ to follow Him. After a while John fell a victim to the tyrant Herod and, at the request of Salome, the daughter of Herodias, was beheaded.
In this context a noteworthy detail is brought to us in the Gospel of Mark (chapter 6: 14): Herod hears what the twelve disciples of Jesus are doing at that time around and after John's death. These twelve had namely received the task to go out two by two into the towns and surrounding countryside and do themselves what they had experienced from their Master: to proclaim how the heavenly world is near and to heal. By taking on the challenge of this task in the absence of their Master, a public opinion forms around their actions which is contradictory. Yet when Herod hears of their activity he speaks a clear definitive judgement: 'That is John, whom I have beheaded. He is risen again.'
How can these few, just sent out, beginners learning what apostleship means, evoke such a response and have such impact? In their more or less tentative insecure doings, an experience of John the Baptist as if resurrected comes about?
When Jesus Christ sends them out (was it to test them?), they go. He himself remains behind in the stillness of solitude. During the half year that they are underway, they by necessity have to turn their back on Him who sent them and leave Him behind, yet wherever they go, they have experiences as if the way is prepared for them. What comes to them and who comes to them is meaningful and congruent with their purpose. Each has the experience as if another companion is with them, guiding angel-like above their heads, preparing their way. When they all return to the One who was all the while their centre and reference point, the amazement is profound as they realise, although going separate ways, they acted as a unified Spirit-community.
For those who live with the Act of Consecration of Man, this can be an experience that – beginners, learners, apostles on probation that we are – can become familiar.
After the celebration at the altar we, by necessity, must leave it all behind. Yet we can do this with a sense of Sending. While the essence of the experience remains behind in the solitude of stillness, it can remain as a central reference point, so that 'out there' where we are underway and at work, we might become sensitive to what and who comes to meet us, of synchronicity. Sometimes, here and there, in single encounters, between one person and another, a sense of companionship can light up, a feeling of being united in Spirit-community that could be identified as: John the Baptist is here again, holding his guiding wing over us.
From Easter to Whitsun
by Rev. Malcolm Allsop
The story which was heard at the Easter Sunday family festival told of the events leading up to Easter as experienced by the large stone used to seal the tomb. Considering Christ’s Deed on Golgotha from the point of view that it was a deed for the earth, it seemed very fitting that the stone, the mineral world ,could be the witness of events: hearing Mother Earth speaking from the depths, experiencing the force that rolled it from the entrance on Easter morning, being the silent observer as Christ left the tomb.
Looking toward Ascension – the closing scene of the forty days – who might be the witness on this occasion? As the Risen One is taken up into the clouds it could well be a bird’s eye view which would make most sense; a sky-lark, (spike-heeled lark), which loves to ascend from open terrain, until it disappears from sight. It might describe how it experienced the added thermal current, the upward lift of warm air which on that morning took it up with ease towards the clouds. Then how the warm current seemed to fan out, building a protective membrane over the earth, breathing between heaven and earth.
And Whitsun? On a ledge, at about shoulder height, in the upper room where the disciples gathered each evening, there burned a lamp. It could recount how the light in the room had varied over the weeks, and how much more strongly it had had to burn during the days following Ascension since the Risen Christ had left the overcast circle of followers. But now, on Whit-Sunday, there had suddenly been such a strong gust of wind filling the room that the lamp could barely stop itself from being blown out. And that was not all! A new radiance or better said, twelve or more radiances, followed closely on the heels of the wind, touching each of the heads of those gathered for the supper meal. After the preceding days of uncertainty and subdued light around them, the lamp saw the disciples as if re-born, talking excitedly, such that it might have even been in other tongues. And it watched them, with one accord, get up and go out to the square below, from where the lamp could still hear their jubilant voices, as they told those gathered of all that had happened.
A deed for the earth, for the rejuvenation of the earth forces and all that grows on it, is nourished by it.
A deed for the heights, the space surrounding this precious planet, and becoming a go-between for the earth and its heavenly neighbours.
A deed for the community, the mosaic of human beings living and working all over the earth, for their spiritual well-being and understanding, for their wisdom-filled interaction.
Such is Easter, Ascension, Whitsun.
The story which was heard at the Easter Sunday family festival told of the events leading up to Easter as experienced by the large stone used to seal the tomb. Considering Christ’s Deed on Golgotha from the point of view that it was a deed for the earth, it seemed very fitting that the stone, the mineral world ,could be the witness of events: hearing Mother Earth speaking from the depths, experiencing the force that rolled it from the entrance on Easter morning, being the silent observer as Christ left the tomb.
Looking toward Ascension – the closing scene of the forty days – who might be the witness on this occasion? As the Risen One is taken up into the clouds it could well be a bird’s eye view which would make most sense; a sky-lark, (spike-heeled lark), which loves to ascend from open terrain, until it disappears from sight. It might describe how it experienced the added thermal current, the upward lift of warm air which on that morning took it up with ease towards the clouds. Then how the warm current seemed to fan out, building a protective membrane over the earth, breathing between heaven and earth.
And Whitsun? On a ledge, at about shoulder height, in the upper room where the disciples gathered each evening, there burned a lamp. It could recount how the light in the room had varied over the weeks, and how much more strongly it had had to burn during the days following Ascension since the Risen Christ had left the overcast circle of followers. But now, on Whit-Sunday, there had suddenly been such a strong gust of wind filling the room that the lamp could barely stop itself from being blown out. And that was not all! A new radiance or better said, twelve or more radiances, followed closely on the heels of the wind, touching each of the heads of those gathered for the supper meal. After the preceding days of uncertainty and subdued light around them, the lamp saw the disciples as if re-born, talking excitedly, such that it might have even been in other tongues. And it watched them, with one accord, get up and go out to the square below, from where the lamp could still hear their jubilant voices, as they told those gathered of all that had happened.
A deed for the earth, for the rejuvenation of the earth forces and all that grows on it, is nourished by it.
A deed for the heights, the space surrounding this precious planet, and becoming a go-between for the earth and its heavenly neighbours.
A deed for the community, the mosaic of human beings living and working all over the earth, for their spiritual well-being and understanding, for their wisdom-filled interaction.
Such is Easter, Ascension, Whitsun.
The Dynamic of Higher Development
by Rev. Reingard Knausenberger
It is no doubt the modern mind has achieved a freedom quite unique and extraordinary compared to earlier times. Who will not have noticed a phenomena that has become commonplace: the tendency to be critical and negative very quickly. Indeed, it is astounding to observe how something that drew our interest, even passionately, will after a while surprisingly be distant and empty. Most clearly it shows in human relationships, where what first attracted us and we even fell in love with in the other, one day suddenly does not move the heart at all and in fact, exactly what we admired has become a source of irritation and complaint. What is this pattern about? First a wholly positive warm embrace of someone or something, experiencing new energy and inspired upliftment, then at some point the same person, the same job, topic, etc. transports us into a negative mood. When we look around, we see this is not just a personal 'flaw', it happens to everyone all the time. The positive evaporates and a 'negative' takes over: a state of inner connectedness changes into a distancing and observing. Warm turns into cold. Yet the 'cold' and 'negative' stage of loss, although a difficult mood of soul, can be the more productive one. The emptiness of soul can be like a ploughed field open and receptive for new seeds and content. Our freedom lies in being able to work with this dynamic wilfully. We can choose to take an approach of positive interest and inner connecting, then choose to shift inwardly into a disconnected emptiness. 'Letting go' it is sometimes called. If in this frame of mind and soul we now take in a new content and then choose to connect with it until it becomes part of us, this action becomes the source of a new positive unfolding and working on a higher level. The Bible is from beginning to end a description of this dynamic working in human evolution. First in the guided group 'from above', then more and more in the guided individual 'from within'. This dynamic is our key to achieving ever higher, more conscious steps of development in order to work positively and effectively in the world.
It is no doubt the modern mind has achieved a freedom quite unique and extraordinary compared to earlier times. Who will not have noticed a phenomena that has become commonplace: the tendency to be critical and negative very quickly. Indeed, it is astounding to observe how something that drew our interest, even passionately, will after a while surprisingly be distant and empty. Most clearly it shows in human relationships, where what first attracted us and we even fell in love with in the other, one day suddenly does not move the heart at all and in fact, exactly what we admired has become a source of irritation and complaint. What is this pattern about? First a wholly positive warm embrace of someone or something, experiencing new energy and inspired upliftment, then at some point the same person, the same job, topic, etc. transports us into a negative mood. When we look around, we see this is not just a personal 'flaw', it happens to everyone all the time. The positive evaporates and a 'negative' takes over: a state of inner connectedness changes into a distancing and observing. Warm turns into cold. Yet the 'cold' and 'negative' stage of loss, although a difficult mood of soul, can be the more productive one. The emptiness of soul can be like a ploughed field open and receptive for new seeds and content. Our freedom lies in being able to work with this dynamic wilfully. We can choose to take an approach of positive interest and inner connecting, then choose to shift inwardly into a disconnected emptiness. 'Letting go' it is sometimes called. If in this frame of mind and soul we now take in a new content and then choose to connect with it until it becomes part of us, this action becomes the source of a new positive unfolding and working on a higher level. The Bible is from beginning to end a description of this dynamic working in human evolution. First in the guided group 'from above', then more and more in the guided individual 'from within'. This dynamic is our key to achieving ever higher, more conscious steps of development in order to work positively and effectively in the world.
Building Trust in Life and Death
by Rev. Reingard Knausenberger
We call ‘death’ the process of shedding what is not able to transform. Upon closer investigation, we can notice how this process of letting go, offering up and bringing to an end is an integral part of an expansive greater rhythm. Ending initiates beginnings, enables new cycles of transforming.
We call ‘life’ the rhythmical processes of continual presencing of what has been before as well as what is undefined and still to come. Rhythm integrates what was past into our present now as well as the unpredictable new of what is to come. The foundation of our earthy life is our heartbeat and breathing –repetition not of the same, but of the similar, not equality but resemblance—in continual weaving of past and future into a fulfilling present.
There are given rhythms that build our daily life:
We call ‘death’ the process of shedding what is not able to transform. Upon closer investigation, we can notice how this process of letting go, offering up and bringing to an end is an integral part of an expansive greater rhythm. Ending initiates beginnings, enables new cycles of transforming.
We call ‘life’ the rhythmical processes of continual presencing of what has been before as well as what is undefined and still to come. Rhythm integrates what was past into our present now as well as the unpredictable new of what is to come. The foundation of our earthy life is our heartbeat and breathing –repetition not of the same, but of the similar, not equality but resemblance—in continual weaving of past and future into a fulfilling present.
There are given rhythms that build our daily life:
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The day — which awakens our ego-hood and creates the experience of a unique Self.
The week — which weaves feelings and experiences into a tapestry of memories. The month — which allows memory to work into deeper unconscious layers of our being and, like waves moving continually, carries our life through endings and beginnings. The year — the cycle of the physical body, where all the other rhythms are consolidated to build the substance that grounds us in existence as a reality. |
Then there are the rhythms of transformation, rhythms which build our unique biography:
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The 7-year cycle by which our carrying physical organization is ever more refined to serve as an instrument for the Ego.
The 18+ year moon-node cycle which organizes our rhythmic life forces to always be receptive for heavenly influences, both physical and spiritual. The biographical life-span from birth to death on earth. It is the workshop for the feeling, thinking, wrestling soul. The cosmic place of learning and growing. The cycle of passage through life after death into re-incarnating on earth, where the eternal individuality is gradually carved out and distilled into its essential Truth. |
These latter rhythms are offerings of freedom; an offer where we can choose to engage and participate, where we can expand our possibilities and horizons for growth.
Rhythm depends on the willingness to make an offering. Rhythm and sacrifice are one and the same, and always a matter of life and death.
Inasmuch as we know to arrange our life according to the healing effects of rhythms, we build our trust in life and can accept death.
As the cycle of the Christian festivals leads us now into Passiontide toward Easter the importance of rhythm emerges, especially during Holy Week: from the 3 years, to the week, into the day and the hour, to the last moment of breathing out. The sacrifice which lies at the core of the Mystery of Golgotha is the source for a completely new beginning of spiritual evolution in humankind. Celebrating these Christ events throughout the year begins to establish a new, independent rhythm in us and between us, born out of freedom and choice. When everything falls away, this rhythm will resurrect as a new creative carrying life force. All rhythms are heavenly forces at work on earth. Yet the experience can grow over time how Christ has become ‘The Lord of the heavenly forces on earth’; that it be 'as in heaven, so also on the earth'.
Carrying the Christ-given Gift into Life
by Rev. Reingard Knausenberger
The sun rises and immediately lights up the past, which is everything that is around us including the memory of the life we left behind last night. At the same time the sun rises with a freshness opening up new vistas for exploration and experiencing, carrying the new future day toward us to unfold. Every morning this happens. Then we get up to meet both past and future. As human beings we wake up every day by an inner light. We can rise into a waking state through egohood, the inner light of self-knowing. Immediately this brings about a struggle of the new with the old. 'In a tree, the old leaves fall down and the new shoots thrust up. The seed dies as the new bud germinates. The fruit falls and the sprout grows. In the human world, the growing child expects to take over the tasks laid down by the older generation. Where the new invades there will be conflict with the old.
In the process of history, one expects the death of the past to accompany the birth of the future. In the struggle of evolution, the contrast arises between what is living and growing and what is dying away.
There is one turning point in the history of humankind which is beyond all others in significance. It is represented in the Bible as the coming of Christ from the world of the Heavens to that of the Earth. It brought to earth the Mystery of the I Am. Just as there is a Soul World in the Universe, so there is a World Ego. It lived in Christ and from Him proceeded to all the individual egos of individual people. Before His coming, egohood was not experienced other than prophetically as still to be made real. Before the great change, people lived according to the image in which they were created by God. After the change, we are living in a continuous process of evolving towards the future form of Man.'* At every stage the influence of this new force, of this in-dwelling egohood, can be seen working, every day, in every encounter, in every action. We might expect that the Christ-given gift of egohood must always work positively for the future. Yet a gift given freely allows the recipient to decide what to do with it. The Bible tells of the wise human beings bringing their gifts back enriched and ennobled, transformed by what has become of them through their working with it. As we journey into another new year, we will meet both past and future. By choosing to grasp our egohood as a Christ-given gift, we will be able to work positively in the ensuing predictable struggle of the new with the old. We can rise up every day, grateful for a fresh opportunity of exploring and experiencing unfolding humanness in and through our Self.
(* from E.F. Capel)
The sun rises and immediately lights up the past, which is everything that is around us including the memory of the life we left behind last night. At the same time the sun rises with a freshness opening up new vistas for exploration and experiencing, carrying the new future day toward us to unfold. Every morning this happens. Then we get up to meet both past and future. As human beings we wake up every day by an inner light. We can rise into a waking state through egohood, the inner light of self-knowing. Immediately this brings about a struggle of the new with the old. 'In a tree, the old leaves fall down and the new shoots thrust up. The seed dies as the new bud germinates. The fruit falls and the sprout grows. In the human world, the growing child expects to take over the tasks laid down by the older generation. Where the new invades there will be conflict with the old.
In the process of history, one expects the death of the past to accompany the birth of the future. In the struggle of evolution, the contrast arises between what is living and growing and what is dying away.
There is one turning point in the history of humankind which is beyond all others in significance. It is represented in the Bible as the coming of Christ from the world of the Heavens to that of the Earth. It brought to earth the Mystery of the I Am. Just as there is a Soul World in the Universe, so there is a World Ego. It lived in Christ and from Him proceeded to all the individual egos of individual people. Before His coming, egohood was not experienced other than prophetically as still to be made real. Before the great change, people lived according to the image in which they were created by God. After the change, we are living in a continuous process of evolving towards the future form of Man.'* At every stage the influence of this new force, of this in-dwelling egohood, can be seen working, every day, in every encounter, in every action. We might expect that the Christ-given gift of egohood must always work positively for the future. Yet a gift given freely allows the recipient to decide what to do with it. The Bible tells of the wise human beings bringing their gifts back enriched and ennobled, transformed by what has become of them through their working with it. As we journey into another new year, we will meet both past and future. By choosing to grasp our egohood as a Christ-given gift, we will be able to work positively in the ensuing predictable struggle of the new with the old. We can rise up every day, grateful for a fresh opportunity of exploring and experiencing unfolding humanness in and through our Self.
(* from E.F. Capel)
Darkness and Nativity: a Contemplation
by Rev. Marcus Knausenberger
Many of the inner pictures connected with the birth of Christ, with the Nativity, that we carry in our imaginations, place the light-filled holy family into a protective sheath of surrounding darkness. We can think of Rembrandt’s Nativity, or of Ninetta Sombart’s Birth of Christ and sense the sheltering quality that the darkness lends to the holy event of His birth. The Christ Child is received into the blanket of night and, in equal measure the darkness of night has a role to play in the events surrounding Christ’s birth.
We can thus begin to distinguish between different qualities of darkness. In the Luke account of the nativity, the shepherds who watched over their flocks by night receive the news of the revelation of Christ’s birth under the envelope of night. The darkness surrounding them has the quality of a simple and pure piety. It is a pre-dawn, starless darkness which speaks to the natural religiosity that is the birthright of every child. It is pure, close to nature, and relatively unburdened with worldly concerns.
Looking at the events around Christ’s birth described in the gospel of Matthew on the other hand, reveals a quality of darkness that has become differentiated and worldly. Within the darkness surrounding the three Kings, the starry firmament becomes visible. Looking up to the stars, the ages-old wisdom of the heavenly bodies is reflected in and taken up by the kings, and they behold the Christ’s descent into earthly matter in the stars. Wisdom is born of experience, of entering painfully into the fullness and depth of relationship to the earth. This quality of darkness in the Matthew gospel is of a very different quality than in Luke. It is neither childlike nor innocent and it surrounds rulers of nations whose tasks are grounded in the affairs of the civilised world.
Between the reverence of the shepherds and that of the kings, we sense a continuum that begins with reverential innocence and moves seamlessly over time into reverence born of experience. The darkness of night in both accounts however, bespeak of a depth of reverence that is needed in order to receive revelation. Reverence has a dark quality in that it calls forth an unknowing receptivity divorced from outcome, divorced from any preconception of content which might be received. The highest revelations of the spirit cannot be willed – only received, for their source is veiled to the human I. In the surrounding darkness into which the Christ Child is born, we hear choirs of angels. The darkness of night overflows with the light of revelation. Out of this overflowing abundance surrounding the town of Bethlehem, the pregnant fullness of the spirit coalesces, concentrates mightily, and finally breaks through at one single point into the sense-world as earth receives the holy child.
We are left with the question: How can the sublime pictures of the nativity be reconciled with our crass and hectic lives? Where on our stricken earth is there room for a silent reverence so complete that it might receive the light of such revelation?
As we move forward and look into Christ’s life as a human being of flesh and blood, we find that the pictures we carry within us at Christmastide, are metamorphosed in the life of Christ-Jesus. Following the accounts of the gospels with the question: ‘Into what darkness is Christ received?’ leads from the nativity into life. As Christ-Jesus moves about the Holy Land with his disciples, he is not received by choirs of angels, nor by the sublime joy surrounding his birth, but by the dark depths of human suffering, by the cries of the sick, the lame, the possessed, the infirm – all those who, through the circumstances of theirs lives, have been cast out into the darkness. He is met by the malice of hardened thinking of religious authority. He is also met by a few who felt their human destiny within his, and became his disciples.
What was outer circumstance surrounding the nativity, becomes inner drama in the life of Christ. Veiled in darkness, all of the drama surrounding the birth of Christ – the outer poverty of the Luke nativity, the dark treachery of King Herod’s murderous rampage described by Matthew – becomes transposed onto the showplace of the human soul. As the spirit of Christ enters ever more deeply into relationship with human beings of flesh and blood, the drama surrounding his life and birth is rewritten. This new living gospel, announced by the old is thus written into the soul of individual human beings.
The twelve holy nights of Christmas is a time to turn inward, to look at the essential role that darkness plays in the unfolding of the human soul. Within it, hidden under the blanket of night, well out of sight from the world and often, even from ourselves, the terrible drama of the human condition resounds with the choir of angels, and shines forth with the light of the starry firmament that announces Christ’s birth.
We move now out of the protective darkness of the Holy Nights into the more differentiated and worldly darkness surrounding Epiphany and beyond. Here we can sense in a new way that the darkness of our age and the corresponding inner darkness that underlies the human experience today, is the place where the Christ may in our daily struggle, be born to us.
Many of the inner pictures connected with the birth of Christ, with the Nativity, that we carry in our imaginations, place the light-filled holy family into a protective sheath of surrounding darkness. We can think of Rembrandt’s Nativity, or of Ninetta Sombart’s Birth of Christ and sense the sheltering quality that the darkness lends to the holy event of His birth. The Christ Child is received into the blanket of night and, in equal measure the darkness of night has a role to play in the events surrounding Christ’s birth.
We can thus begin to distinguish between different qualities of darkness. In the Luke account of the nativity, the shepherds who watched over their flocks by night receive the news of the revelation of Christ’s birth under the envelope of night. The darkness surrounding them has the quality of a simple and pure piety. It is a pre-dawn, starless darkness which speaks to the natural religiosity that is the birthright of every child. It is pure, close to nature, and relatively unburdened with worldly concerns.
Looking at the events around Christ’s birth described in the gospel of Matthew on the other hand, reveals a quality of darkness that has become differentiated and worldly. Within the darkness surrounding the three Kings, the starry firmament becomes visible. Looking up to the stars, the ages-old wisdom of the heavenly bodies is reflected in and taken up by the kings, and they behold the Christ’s descent into earthly matter in the stars. Wisdom is born of experience, of entering painfully into the fullness and depth of relationship to the earth. This quality of darkness in the Matthew gospel is of a very different quality than in Luke. It is neither childlike nor innocent and it surrounds rulers of nations whose tasks are grounded in the affairs of the civilised world.
Between the reverence of the shepherds and that of the kings, we sense a continuum that begins with reverential innocence and moves seamlessly over time into reverence born of experience. The darkness of night in both accounts however, bespeak of a depth of reverence that is needed in order to receive revelation. Reverence has a dark quality in that it calls forth an unknowing receptivity divorced from outcome, divorced from any preconception of content which might be received. The highest revelations of the spirit cannot be willed – only received, for their source is veiled to the human I. In the surrounding darkness into which the Christ Child is born, we hear choirs of angels. The darkness of night overflows with the light of revelation. Out of this overflowing abundance surrounding the town of Bethlehem, the pregnant fullness of the spirit coalesces, concentrates mightily, and finally breaks through at one single point into the sense-world as earth receives the holy child.
We are left with the question: How can the sublime pictures of the nativity be reconciled with our crass and hectic lives? Where on our stricken earth is there room for a silent reverence so complete that it might receive the light of such revelation?
As we move forward and look into Christ’s life as a human being of flesh and blood, we find that the pictures we carry within us at Christmastide, are metamorphosed in the life of Christ-Jesus. Following the accounts of the gospels with the question: ‘Into what darkness is Christ received?’ leads from the nativity into life. As Christ-Jesus moves about the Holy Land with his disciples, he is not received by choirs of angels, nor by the sublime joy surrounding his birth, but by the dark depths of human suffering, by the cries of the sick, the lame, the possessed, the infirm – all those who, through the circumstances of theirs lives, have been cast out into the darkness. He is met by the malice of hardened thinking of religious authority. He is also met by a few who felt their human destiny within his, and became his disciples.
What was outer circumstance surrounding the nativity, becomes inner drama in the life of Christ. Veiled in darkness, all of the drama surrounding the birth of Christ – the outer poverty of the Luke nativity, the dark treachery of King Herod’s murderous rampage described by Matthew – becomes transposed onto the showplace of the human soul. As the spirit of Christ enters ever more deeply into relationship with human beings of flesh and blood, the drama surrounding his life and birth is rewritten. This new living gospel, announced by the old is thus written into the soul of individual human beings.
The twelve holy nights of Christmas is a time to turn inward, to look at the essential role that darkness plays in the unfolding of the human soul. Within it, hidden under the blanket of night, well out of sight from the world and often, even from ourselves, the terrible drama of the human condition resounds with the choir of angels, and shines forth with the light of the starry firmament that announces Christ’s birth.
We move now out of the protective darkness of the Holy Nights into the more differentiated and worldly darkness surrounding Epiphany and beyond. Here we can sense in a new way that the darkness of our age and the corresponding inner darkness that underlies the human experience today, is the place where the Christ may in our daily struggle, be born to us.