Yes, rishi, Eastern spirituality can help Western Christianity renew its weakened spiritual heart.

It did so for me.

Hi Rishi: Did you mean Eastern Orthodox Christianity rather than Far Eastern spirituality?

I never explored Eastern Orthodox Christianity and can't say much about it. 

____________________________________________________________

Hi sigh: Rishi could mean that Eastern Orthodox spirituality is more fierce and passionate than Western Christianity. The Eastern Christian heart may be more of a heart of fire, or on fire, and we lukewarm Western Christians could do with some of that fire. But I'll let Rishi answer.

One's got to ask ....

But then there's those that are terrified to go there ...

I had to for the brutality in the church dogma wasn't for me ... until I found the remnants of the underground social order ... the humanity in people that they couldn't appear to get to in their isolated states?

It is a peculiar state to say the least ... but wee tend to hate the alien ... especially if it stands and casts a Shadow ... logical form ... growing tree ... if it is dead the light is hidden must be raised from that aspect ... like graft? Skill of the keeper of the vineyahd ... rom for attached thoughts generating change ... alteration? Adult Error Tree ... the cross ca do it as opposition to another emotion ... way across the void of the physical mind ... Soul of Darkness? Pile the word tuit ... ID'll learn ...

Rishi wrote:

Western Christianity became preoccupied with external forms and beliefs rather than the heart of the spirituality of Jesus. 

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

i think it has much more to do with than just this, the western world have become materialistic, not only do we have what ever we want but we have to have the best brand name attached to them, a car i snot enough , it needs to be a BMW because it spells success.

who needs God when we have everything uh     

Hi Arminius, I hear what you're saying about the western churches often being too intellectual. It seems to me that we need to balance the intellectual with the mystical though...to clear up misconceptions about what it is we have come to believe, before going deeper...so as not to delve deeper under certain dellusions about meanings within our faith.

This is a different matter...but the video I watched the other night, by an Orthodox Priest in the US...was really interesting...very basic no nonsense style of sermon...yet, I got a little freaked out at one point when he raised his voice and proclaimed that eastern orthodox Christians should not worry about the age to come because they were already dead to this age when they were baptised...seemed morose, and I couldn't quite get my head around that...perhaps some internal resistance, on my part, to that concept, and he also spent a considerable amount of time critising GLBT people...in a "nice" way that wasn't so nice imo. THere was one point where he said medical research was good if it lead to cures for illness...on the other hand, felt that artifical insemination (especially when gay and lesbian people do it) was an abomination....somehow contradicited itself...I thought, well, if you believe you're already dead, why bother to support or criticise at all then...and why bother to bring kids into the world at all then...why not just leave them (or the concept of them), where they came from/ belong so they don't have to endure this age? Anyway, those were just my questions....can't help it, my intellect did jump in. Perhaps someone else has a different take on it.

Our regular minister (UCC) usually includes poetry often 18th and 19th century, and does discuss the mystics in his sermons. Perhaps poetry is more palatable to our culture than really getting into the ancient mystical ideas...sort of eases us into it...I find it fascinating and inspiring...poetry and art can be God inspired and mystical in it's own right...just because we have moved away from the practicies of the mystics, God still inspires us in deep ways.

Our interm minister recently gave a sermon and mentioned the word mystagog...a new one for me and most of us...we're startng to open up.

Hi jlin,

it's been a long time since I sat here and wrote an actual poem that really gets to the root of my spiritual experiences...a few little ones, but not like I used to do...I tend to write a lot of essays on WC these days ;)

I used to write a lot, way before I ever went to church. I really love reading poetry...poets do have have amazing insights if you can catch them!  I like all styles...I used to love reading the beat writers as well...Kerouac, my favourite of course (everyone's first intro to the beat generation, I think)...his writing was so raw, rough draft, spontaneous, but he made even the toughest, down and out places and experiences seem beautiful, found the good heart beating in them somehow, like a beautiful painting or intricate and lyrical music that was a joy for me to read. There's a new Kerouac book out, a long lost early story called "The Sea is My Brother". I haven't read it.

..this is a derail from the discussion about eastern spirituality...but related when we're talking about deep and moving insights.

Yes, Kimmio, of course: We have to balance the mystical with the intellectual. Any type of one-sidedness can lead us astray.

When it comes to reason versus intuition, however, I think that reason should rank secondary to intuition because intuition comprehends reality directly, as is, as a unitive whole in a state of synthesis, whereas reason requires a viewpoint from which to analyse, and this viewpoint is arbitrarily chosen by the analyser. The truth of reason is an arbitrary choice, relative to the viewpoint of the observer, whereas the Truth of intuition is absolute.

Perhaps this is why you like poetry so much, because it arises directly from the depth of intuition, without interference by the faculty of logic.

Reason, in itself confounded,

Saw division grow together;

To themselves yet either-neither,

Simple were so well compounded

That it cried how true a twain

Seemeth this concordant one!

Love hath reason, reason none

If what parts can so remain.

-from THE PHOENIX AND THE TURTLE by W. Shakespeare

Reading another thread made me think. I understand the rebirth aspect...rebirth into a new age to come...I am just not sure I can fathom that they are to stay "dead" and wait for it, if that's what that means...because even before rebirth, before and even in the birth pains, there is the development of life--as metaphor-- already conceived of and alive and kicking in the womb...and we are always in these developmenmtal stages and these birth, death and rebirth stages...it is not one singular event...it's in God's time. I am not sure if I'm making sense... I've had kind of a vision about this, somehow I can't help but believe there is overlap between the ages in God's time...we think linearly, but God's time is not linear...also I think we are participants in bringing it about, which requires us to be alive. Isn't that what hope is all about? Isn't hope an active and alive thing?

Hi rishi,

I appreciate the attempt to clarify.  I'm not satisfied that "central mode of existence" is more clear than "heart" is.  Put another way, "heart" and "central mode of existence" are labels.  What is it that they are labelling?

Peripheral sure.  Judged in terms of?  I think not.  We judge the health of say a person's lungs based on what we know of lungs in general not what we know of hearts in general.  There are connections sure.  Things are what they are and judging them by what they are not is both unwise and unhealthy.

Possibly.  Of course saying it isn't necessarily the living Christ doesn't mean that the living Christ cannot be the heart of Christianity.

It might well be.

Perhaps.

Which is fair.  Still, if we cannot identify the heart (and we have yet to do that here) how do we know that Eastern Christianity identies the heart correctly and accesses the heart more directly?

Suppose they are as confused about the heart of Christianity as Western Christians are?  If blind follow the blind both end up in the ditch.

I'm not saying that Eastern Christianity doesn't know what the heart of Christianity is.  Nor am I saying that Eastern Christianity couldn't help us to access it with greater ease.  I'm saying if we don't know what the heart of Christianity is then we wouldn't be able to see if Eastern Christianity gets us there with greater ease or haste.  I'm not surprised that somebody in the Eastern Church would feel confident about their ability to help us to be more Christian.  It sounds very similar to claims in Western Christianity that we can help others because we know better.

Grace and peace to you.

John

Hi rishi,

A fair question.  One I will not answer at present because I am not part of the conversation claiming that I can help others with their weakened spiritual heart.  Nor do I think that Eastern Christianity is insulated from preoccupation of external forms in a better way than Western Christianity.  It is true that there is a difference between East and West thinking.  External and internal exist in both the East and the West.

Now to answer the question.

I believe the heart of Christianity is Christ.  I also believe that the goal of Christianity is to capture what Jesus spoke of in John 14:  20

So, on the face of it there doesn't appear to be a great deal of difference in our mutual identifications of heart.

That we could, from different traditions arrive at roughly the same place indicates to me, at the very least, that the Western Christian tradition, for all its faults, failures, sins and short-comings is not at a spiritual disadvantage to the Eastern Christian tradition.

How do we get to that place is a matter of practice.  I'm not confident that one particular practice is of necessity better than any other particular practice.  I am confident that how we, as individuals are wired, shapes our preference to particular practice.

Grace and peace to you.

John