Self and soul

Two submissions of mine were published in the last few days. In “Economy stifles middle class with unfair tax cuts,” I quote several conservative economists who refute the right-wing belief that tax cuts would stimulate and cure our country’s sick economy, resting my statement on the economic model of supply and demand. We don’t need more supply—billionaires have plenty of money to start businesses. What’s lacking is demand—customers with enough money to demand services and products.

 My other published submission is not available online. It was a letter in National Catholic Reporter responding to an article in the previous edition of NCR. My letter prompted, in turn, a phone call I received from an 81-year-old in Phoenix, Arizona.

The article in NCR bemoans the shift of emphasis from soul to self in religious writing “because soul is a key word in a world that gave structure and meaning to a spiritual way of life.” The writer claims that changing the focus to the dignity of the individual was the root cause of changes in religious life over the past 50 years, writing,

With the eclipse of the soul, religious life found itself bereft of its essential focus.

She implies that religious communities have lost their souls and this caused their demise. She does not appreciate the vibrant spiritual health of religious sisters today.

I take a radically different view of the shift from soul to self. Traditional talk of saving our souls assumed that we had souls, disconnected things attached to our persons like appendages, white things pictured in religion class with black marks from our sins. Having moved past traditional Catholic training, I say we are souls; they are our essential selves, our whole selves.

The word “self” does not denote egotistical narcissism. Soul and self both refer to my deepest, divine self, my Higher Power, my inner Beloved, the “Christ in me,” to quote Paul in Galatians. This higher self, distinct from my ego personality, guides me, encourages me, brings me up short when I need it. I welcome the change in thought from having souls to being souls, our essential selves. Rather than a retreat from spiritual values, this incorporates spirituality into the whole of life.

The caller from Phoenix was very happy to see my statement, an insight she had come to from working through suffering.

Shift to a new earth

The Shift network describes itself as a group of global co-creators, that is, awake and aware evolutionary pioneers who intentionally participate in the Birth to the next era of our evolution. They have arbitrarily chosen December 22, 2012, as the birthday of a new earth, a world that works for everyone. The “undisputed planetary midwife” of this movement is futurist Barbara Marx Hubbard.

In this excerpt of her address to the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, Barbara Marx Hubbard claims an a-religious, agnostic, materialistic, secular, Jewish background, and wonders at the opportunity of her presence at the LCWR conference. The anomaly of Roman Catholic nuns having her speak at their conference stirs her immensely.

No one could have planned it this way, but perhaps the higher consciousness of the Divine is at work . . .

She claims,

a shared sense of mission” with the sisters at this most critical time in the history of humanity. We’re facing a moment of choice because the system is not sustainable as it is. . . . [It will shift] one way or another—toward radical breakdown, or innovation, creativity, love, and breakthrough. How the system tips depends on what happens, and this is happening.

By “this” I think she meant the linking of her secular spiritual movement with the sisters.

In the conscious evolution she intuits, we are at a chaos point, the critical tipping point in an evolutionary trend out of the present state of behavior, which cannot continue. The system is launched on a new trajectory to a new structure, a new mode of operation. The timing is perfect for this exact situation to have occurred. With intuitive, evolutionary eyes, she sees this as a 13.7 billion year trend, a pattern of breakdowns and breakthroughs.

My friend Sondra Lewis has this reflection on the movement:

This whole shift is like a tsunami that is still way out in the ocean. Without any sophisticated monitors you don't see it coming until it hits shore. Our sophisticated monitor is noticing and connecting what is happening below the radar.

This “sophisticated monitor” operates in every human breast but on a level not acknowledged by most. I think it explains the panicky fear and fanatical resistance to change exhibited by some. When I get discouraged by political and religious events, I hold in mind these thoughts, and I am consoled.