The Glory of Wombful Mercy

Mercy in a wombful sense is a glorious way of meeting grief. 

A wombful mercy springs forth not from power over, but arises from the depths of sacred Origin. The ever-present beginning-ing that is always happening.

A wombful mercy embraces our grief and holds it in the compassion of deep empathy—with us in the midst of it, from inside the womb. It remains and releases in response to what is embodied here and now. It is able to hold and let go, in the blessedly ripe and right time.

A wombful mercy evokes a more feminine way of meeting pain and dejection, less concerned with fixing or trying to absolve, it stays with us as long as we need in great care.

A wombful mercy is creative and illuminative. It gives birth to new life and wonderous conceptions.

A wombful mercy is communal, helping give birth to a new sense of ourselves. It lets go of “shoulds” for ourselves and others, freeing us into the fullness of our unique, authentic being in divine creativity—held together in communion, 

How might you welcome and embody wombful mercy today and this week?

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The *Whole-Body* in Whole-Body Mystical Awakening

Thinking alone does not connect us to God. It takes feelings, intuitive sensing, and grounding to the material cosmos.

Whole Body Mystical Awakening practice is not being aware of your body but being aware as the body. Here we learn to “soak” in the bliss, love, sensations, feelings, images, colors, words, sounds, intuitions that arise from deep within—as well as from the spiritual field between us and the other physical and non-physical beings present.

This is the shift from “ordinary consciousness” into a fuller, more integrated consciousness.

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The *Mystical* in Whole-Body Mystical Awakening

Pew research from 2009 revealed that 49% of Americans say they have had a religious or mystical experience, defined as a “moment of sudden religious insight or awakening.” Eleven years later, that number is most likely higher. It has been climbing up steadily from only 22% in 1962. The percentage may actually be greater considering that many may have had such experiences but wouldn’t want to put the term “religious” on it for a variety of reasons.

Have you had a mystical experience? 

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Why We Practice WeSpace & Whole-Body Mystical Awakening

What is the purpose of our WeSpace groups? Why do we advocate Whole-Body Mystical Awakening practices?

At ICN, our stated purpose is “Gathering a global community of dedicated mystical practitioners for the loving evolution of Christianity and the world.”

We dedicate ourselves to our mystical practice because it takes us into the pathways of inhabiting and becoming this transformative presence in the world. Because it is how we become conscious participants in the divine, creative work of loving evolution.

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Whole-Body Mystical Awakening

If I asked you to think about your body, what comes to mind?

How you look from the outside? What amount of weight we’d like to lose? Our skin and bones. Organs and tissues. Muscle and fat. Cells and neurons.

This is the body from an exterior, objective material perspective. It is true, but it is partial.

Unfortunately, so much of Christian history propagated and reinforced a division of the material and the spiritual. Body and soul apart, despite being the religion of the incarnation, of God made flesh. Combine that with a Western materialism that also tends toward disembodiment, and here we are—many of us disconnected and disassociated from our body as a true aspect of our being, not just an object.

There has been pushback of course. More yoga and tai chi, dance and movement. Perhaps we’ve learned some about our emotional body, our pain body. And perhaps, you’ve already begun to come more into your subtle body—your mystical body. 

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WeSpace Groups—Why We Need the “We”

I (Paul) was twenty years old and very much a devoted follower of Jesus when I first realized a striking thing about Jesus that I had not grasped before. The first action Jesus took in his public ministry to heal and change his world was to gather a few others willing to follow him. He spent an extraordinary amount of time together with them as they shared their lives in radical ways. From that humble but dynamic beginning, we now have a world in which one-third of its 7.7 billion people claim to be his followers. His life and message of love, although not always followed, have made a radical, worldwide impact.

I decided I needed such a group in my life and asked six of my closest Christian friends if they would be willing to meet weekly to share our lives and pray for each other. Since that time over sixty years ago, I have always had such a group in my life. After seminary, I was called to pastor, for almost half a century the only church I would ever lead. The first thing I did was gather a few church members together in a small group that met weekly to share and pray. That multiplied until over 400 members of our congregation were meeting regularly in small groups which became the dynamic relational and spiritual center for our life together.

My (Luke) long passion for gathering has taken many forms throughout my life. Early on in my church life I was asking why our gatherings looked the way they did. I explored new forms such as house churches, new monastic intentional community, contemplative gatherings, and other ways of gathering small groups together. While traditional churches are shrinking, Christians still very much need to gather together. The spaces and ways need to keep evolving to serve the Christianity of the future.

We are seeking to do just that with Integral Christian Network. This movement invites followers of Jesus from around the world to meet primarily on the Internet via Zoom, for now. More local groups may develop in the future. In what we call “WeSpace groups,” anywhere from four to eight participants share their lives with one another and practice a form of meditative prayer together we call Whole-Body Mystical Awakening.

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Joseph: Man of Wisdom (Sophos)

Celebrating The Holy Family

Christmas has come and with it, the ever-renewing birth of Christ Consciousness. In the Adventing series, we contemplated the role of Christ Sophia, the divine and human Wisdom in its feminine mode.

Yet, as the writings pointed out, Christ Consciousness is neither feminine nor masculine alone, but a non-binary, non-dual incarnated unity of Spirit and Creation.  There are “feminine” and “masculine” tones and overtones that dance in the endless swirl of emergent evolution that we experience as our lives.

If Mary is, in her “Fiat” – “Let it be done unto me” – the symbol of Sophia, the feminine in Christ Consciousness in the Nativity stories, then Joseph may be viewed as the symbol of Sophos, the masculine in Christ Consciousness.  

In Jesus, whom Richard Rohr likes to describe as a feminine soul in a masculine body, the fullness of Christ Consciousness is revealed and modeled for all creation for all time.

And, together, Jesus, Mary, and Joseph form the Holy Family as the model for healthy, loving, and supportive relationships among people, as well as an analog for individual growth into full Christ Consciousness. 

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The Birth of Christ Consciousness in Us

In this series, we have been considering how we might participate in adventing—which is to say, actively engaging in the arrival of Christ Consciousness in this season. As Christmas is upon us, the time for birth may be drawing near.

Do you feel them? The contractions of a world in the early pangs of labor?

We all have our personal journey in the ways we bear and bring forth the divine in our lives. Individually, we might be more than ready for the birth to come. Or, we could still be in a place of early gestation. Perhaps we continue to wait for the gift of a new inner conception. The calendar says it’s time, yet we may be living in barrenness or miscarriage.

Sometimes, in the passage toward birth and new life, it will feel like death.

Wherever you are in this rite unfolding, we are all, at the same time—in this time, participating in a collective natal arrival. Christ Consciousness is not a possession to be attained by some but a flow of divine being we open up to and move with. And the current is growing. The tide is rising in a global awakening. A cosmic imperative for the advent of a new divine initiation.  

Do you see them? The angels among the expanse of stars in the sky twinkling with the celestial light of proclamation?

For unto us is born a savior, in the cities and stables of every part of the earth. In the fields and in the forests. There is no need to journey to Bethlehem, for Christ comes in ubiquity. She is all around us and before us. They are beside us and beyond.

Do you hear them? The voices of spirit declaring across the land: we are making all things new.

I bring you tidings of great joy, which shall be for all people. The divine life is born among you. Lo, behold, it is within you!

Come, taste and see.

Come, come with haste.

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