mergenergy

Now look out. I'm about to get all mysto-theo-cosmo-logical on you here. In The Still Point: Reflections on Zen and Christian Mysticism, William Johnston, a fine and admirable Jesuit who has spent decades in Japan, writes concerning Teilhard de Chardin:

"Teilhard's doctrine of the cosmic Christ has been the subject of considerable discussion. Some have interpreted it as meaning that all material things (the mountains and streams, the hills and the factories) are quite literally the body of Christ. But surely Teilhard could not have meant anything so absurd." (p. 164)

Maybe Teilhard didn't mean anything so absurd, but I do.

I see "matter" as life force condensing, as denser spirit, but spirit all the same. Sure, we can and do divide everything up. That's a mountain. That's a hill. That's a stream. That's a factory. This division makes us feel safe and sane and secure, plus there are many practical benefits. But when we look more deeply, at the molecular and submolecular, everything is alive and moving.

I see everything as an interwhirling, from the submolecular to the supra-galactic. It's a mergenergy. We chop it up into manageable divisions. (We sometimes dispute over how we chop it but that's another story.)

Whether this interwhirling is the Cosmic Christ, the Universal Body of Buddha, the Tao, the Kabbalistic Tree, the Self-Disclosure of God, or some other naming is to me a moot point and a personal predilection. I feel the truth and the spiritual energy of each of them.