As the year draws to a close, I am compelled to take time to reflect on all that has taken place this past year. What I discover in this deeper dive, is that all of us have been subjected to constant trauma. All our senses have been assaulted, and if we have not felt the pain from these assaults, just wait.

I am not here to convince you to believe me, or to shame you for doing or thinking what you might about this virus, nor is it my desire to judge or debate with you about all the actions that have been and are being taken by our governments. Rather, I want to ask you this question: does the continued polarization of our population, our society, and our very culture have a good outcome? Where will it lead if we have a society that is broken across a perceived public health status? What might that look like and how does that prospect make you feel? Regardless of your answers to these questions, is this the only way forward—do we have to pick sides? What happens if we don’t pick a side, is that an option? If we follow the actions in some countries, like Austria for example, not picking a side is not going to be an option. What then? I would argue that there are options but they don’t involve picking sides.

Earlier this week, my wife and I were having a discussion about the idea of a Third Way, that is this notion that there is a way forward that does not involve the tragic consequence of opposites. I told her that back in 2007 I wrote a paper titled, Wisdom and the Apocalypse—Refracted through the gateway of the Liberal Art of Dialectica, and the “Erotic Sciences” of alchemy, astrology, sacred art, and the wisdom tradition of the Kabbalah. I spent some time searching an old backup disk and found the paper. After pulling up this paper I shared it with my wife, whose initial response was to tell me that what I wrote in 2007 was nothing short of prophetic and that it contained words and thoughts that must be shared today. I admit I was a more than a little flattered by what she said because I have never thought of myself as that good a writer or someone anyone might listen to. That being said, I decided to share some of what I wrote on this blog – why not. Before I upload the actual edited paper, let me just paste here my reasons for writing this paper back in 2007.

“…It is with this background that I sit down to write about the paradox and wisdom of apocalypse. It is a paradox because our culture has defined apocalypse as something final, a termination, an ending of life as we know it, with little regard or respect for the kernels of creation that can flow from such events; and wisdom, because in the margins of the terror and the fear, wisdom—that can only be divine— unfolds. If only we knew how not to be swallowed up by the darkness, but rather, to be present with the energy and discover the wisdom hidden in the margins.

As I explore the paradox and wisdom of the apocalypse in the pages that follow, I hope to convey to the reader, that it is a dualism of thought and form, in fact an illusion created by our minds, that continues to trap us in a cycle devoid of hope. Until we can let go of this dualistic idea of good and evil, light and darkness, and give into the nothingness that is God, we will continue to be entangled by the dangers that lie within.“

Here I am, fourteen years later, and I find myself blown away by my own words. Without further ado, here is the paper. In the next few days I will start to write about what I think this Third Way could look like.

The Wisdom – Apocalypse Paradox

“Das ewig Weibliche zieht uns hinan” (The eternal Feminine (Wisdom) draws us upward)[1].  I like this image from the Chorus Mysticus in Faust of being drawn upward by the Divine Feminine (Sophia) and I see it as a backdrop against which we are born.  Once born into this world we are immediately thrust into a reality full of opposites and we come face-to-face with the ultimate question that seems to arise from our experience of life and self-reflection.  This is the fundamental experience of the pain the suffering and the death that are part of life and upon deeper reflection are felt to be embedded into the very matrix of the universe.  This paradox of feeling drawn upward by the Divine Feminine, Wisdom, Sophia, from the very heart of our being while concurrently clashing with the absurdities, injustice and catastrophes of life has been referred to by philosophers and theologians alike as the tragic contradiction[2].  It is not just the tragedies of life experienced on a personal level but also those experienced on a communal and universal level.  We see that beyond the personal pain and suffering there are cosmic catastrophes, biological, sociological, ethical, racial, sexual and national and international conflicts.  This observation of opposition and contradiction is not new and in fact has driven humankind to search for explanations and solutions.  Countless mystics through the ages have stated that the solution comes to us from the ultimate hidden unity of the One who dwells “behind the wall of the coincidence of opposites” and “miraculously combines the opposites, so that they cannot destroy each other, so that conflict is suddenly transformed into harmony.”[3]  Hegel[4] says that Wisdom is to be found where philosophy and religion meet but how does this explain the terror and heartache that has been brought about by religion; what is the wisdom in this?   I believe that it is in this space-between the opposites, this infinite realm where the antinomies arise and dialectic begins and if we are willing to look inward and let go of our need to control the space we might just discover the power and love in true dialogue.   

It is that place where according to Aristotle we, ‘learn the art of dealing in contradictions, of discovering and resolving antinomies.’[5]  He has a beautiful description of the antinomies in his dialectical discussion of the harmony that can arise from opposition and conflict.  In the famous maxim of Heraclitus the classic Platonic question is raised regarding this subject: “Between whom do friendship and love exist, between equals or between opposites?”[6]  In answer to this he quotes Euripides saying that “parched earth loves the rain, and stately heaven when filled with rain loves to fall to earth.” Aristotle goes on further and offers the following solution:

“But perhaps there is no real attraction between opposites, as such, but only accidentally, and what they actually desire is the mean between them (since this is for the Good); the dry for instance striving not to become wet, but to reach an intermediate state, and so with the hot and everything else.”[7]  

This space between is where the inner and the outer world come together, in effect they are wedded in what alchemists have called the hieros gamos or sacred marriage; the coming together of opposites giving birth to a new stage of being.  As was stated by René Querido, “…the Christ in us is born and we can now fully partake in our Divine son/daughtership.”[8] I cannot fully understand how this happens, for although I have witnessed this transformation in myself, it seems that more often than not the transition is unconscious and I only observe its fruits.  These observations have convinced me that the space between is Divine, and while it transects space and time it is not subject to space and time.  I believe that it is the experience of living in the space between that prompted Yeshua to say to his disciples that the Kingdom of God is here now and it is within you.[9]

Kabbalah and the Tree of Life

According to the Kabbalah each aspect of creation and each person is a miniature Tree of Life.  Each of us has a physical, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual shape contained within ourselves that can be compared to the DNA that forms the patterns upon which all life is based.  The kabbalistic approach to this says that, The Tree of Life is modeled in triads, that can be used on a personal level to become aware, to awaken to our Divine nature and become part of creation.   Contained within is a model for connection to one another and to the One.

The Tree of Life is represented by ten circles. (Figure 1 – Tree of Life)  These circles (sefirot) are drawn in three vertical lines, the center or trunk is represented by four sefirot and two vertical branches, one on either side of the trunk, representing three sefirot each.  Study and reflection by kabbalist have revealed that each of the two opposing aspects work in opposition to each other with a third that lies in the middle on a moving equilibrium point between the two opposing sides. The sefirot triplets of the Tree of Life are shown below.

According to the Kabbalah if we look at Chesed which is defined as the quality of expansiveness, mercy and generosity we see that it is that part of us that gives in even when another part of us says no. It is that part that wants to give to anyone that has a need, embrace the suffering and those who are without.  Uncontrolled it has the potential to smother the other, it has no self-limitation, no boundaries; it knows only how to give.  Gevorah is the quality of contraction, severity and restraint, it is that part of us that wants to hold back, not give away the family jewels.  At its best it protects us and ensures that we have sensible boundaries.  In contrast to Chesed it stands in opposition to generosity.  In its extreme Gevorah prefers things just as they are, it is stifling, rigid and hypercritical. It resists change, is closed off and gives the appearance of being introverted.   These two opposites interact with each other but are none-the-less in opposition and at times we feel this opposition.  Because these two poles push and pull one another something is needed to mediate between the two.  This balance point is tiferet and it serves as the middle path.  Kabbalah defines tiferet as beauty and compassion, to ensure that we are neither too selfish nor too expansive.  But as noted by Rabbi David A Cooper, Tiferet is, “not merely the passive consequence of the two opposing forces” of generosity and restraint, “…but it possesses a third quality that is drawn from the trunk of the Tree of Life itself.” [10]

When considering the antinomial nature of Wisdom and Apocalypse and the question of the tragic contradictions I am particularly struck by the wisdom in this ancient symbol of the Tree of Life.  The Kabbalah says that the lower sefirot represent ordinary consciousness, basically all the things that go on in our minds. However, in order for us to move beyond the realm of the physical universe we must become aware of that which is beyond ourselves, that which is known only through quiet and reflection – in stillness.  Different names are used by different cultures to describe these higher levels of consciousness and in Kabbalah it is called chochma / binah consciousness.  Chochma is defined as nothingness, or literally translated, as wisdom, and binah is defined as the element of understanding.  Both of these on their own are useless; for example, we may hear great wisdom (chochma) but without the benefits of binah (understanding) we have nothing.  It is only when we put chochma together with binah that we have knowledge (daat).  This is the critical third way, a miracle, the tertium datur[11]; it is the way forward, toward a new way of being, that was not present before, or at least not in awareness.

Apocalypse and the Battle of Opposites

Parts of our world seem to be immersed in violence and evil, we don’t have to look far for evidence that we seem to be slipping into or perhaps, even living in hell.  Our collective inhumanity is not limited to what we do to each other but also to life itself, leaving the very planet that we depend upon for our survival, at risk of extinction.  The very garden that we have been given to care for and to nurture simply may not survive our greed and selfishness.  The dialectical development of opposites is everywhere, and it seems that we are chained to a drama that in itself is unjust and offers us a fate similar to Prometheus or Socrates.  When considering the mystery and magic of creation, it is difficult to understand what is to be gained in having living beings oppose one another. We live in a world where differing opinions, unresolved rage and greed, can lead to war and unspeakable violence against each other and the planet.  Upon examination, it seems obvious that opposites oppose one another much like the poles on a magnet, and just like a magnet in extreme situations they cannot tolerate one another.  In the face of continued violence toward one another and our planet, our growing lack of concern toward the poor and elderly, extremes in wealth, greed, anger, hate and revenge we seem like a species bent on destruction.  Under these circumstances, opposition can become intolerable and it is this outcome that leads to suffering, death and tragedy. This pattern seems to be our history, and yet it cannot simply be that one group with one belief, and another group with a contrary belief, are like opposite poles of a magnet and are doomed to repel one another.  Could there be factors other than belief and the continuing battle of opposites at work here, wherein a solution lies?

History is replete with evidence of cultures that after centuries of conflict and violence have finally lifted themselves up and found a way to make a lasting peace, to bury the hatchet.  Collectively we seem to use whatever reason we can to avoid addressing these contradictions. We delude ourselves into thinking we are spiritually and intellectually mature, judging others and trying to control their lives. Meanwhile telling ourselves that it is the beliefs and practices of others that are holding us back and preventing peace, that only if everyone was as mature or prayerful or ‘religious’ as us, only then we would have peace and harmony.  It is this argument that we use to justify preemptive war, the death penalty, assassinations, corporate greed, lying and a whole host of other acts of violence against ourselves and each other.    In reality it is our own hate and fear that holds us back and delivers us to the same hell occupied by the very people we wish to destroy.   I believe that it is our own lack of awareness, to the beauty and wonder of creation, and to the mastery of the Divine, which has led to the hate and much of the violence in the world.  We seem unable to consider the possibility that darkness cannot exist without light, that The Divine, is master of all – darkness and light.  Instead we seek to define the nature of the Divine in our own image and to this god we give attributes and characteristics.  We say my god is on my side; my god will destroy you, for you are evil.  If God is everything and there is only God, then what is evil or darkness or light or anything?  Everything is God (Lâ ilâha illâ llâh[12]) and as said in the Nicene Creed of 325 CE, there is nothing seen or unseen which is not God.  This realization should bring us to our knees, in humility and gratitude, but instead we have arrogantly created our own destruction through the emergence of a collective vision of apocalypse, that sees the world we know collapsing into itself with only the ‘righteous’ surviving.  Our hubris is the darkness that grips our collective soul, and unless we are willing to empty ourselves and allow the darkness to swirl around us, we will never see the light. 

Throughout time there have been mystics from around the world who have seen the destruction that will come if we don’t awaken. Such visions of apocalypse have been raised in the myth of the Rig Veda, the Upanishads, and again presented throughout the books of the Bible the Qur’an.  When considering the antinomial nature of reality, and the paradox of unity that exists, we must first understand and embrace the possibility that it is through these coincidences of opposites and tragic contradictions, that many wonders and new discoveries are possible, but only if we choose to become aware.  It would seem that the very notion of opposites can lead to conflict or to union, and it may well be dependent on our capacity to reach for solutions, through our very awareness of the polarity that exists, or to descend into the complete dialectical development of opposition where as Heraclitus said, “war is the father of all things.”[13]  “Opposites are bonded to each other” says Vysheslawzeff, “not by indifference but rather connected by hate;”[14] Aristotle says that, “opposites destroy one another.”[15]  Another view of apocalypse is offered by Hobbes, who calls this state of affairs “a time of Warre, (sic) where every man is Enemy to every man.”[16]  We have possibly reached a point in our history, where not just every man and woman, but also every part of creation might arise against the violence and abuse simply out of sheer repugnance, and a demand for a solution.  When we witness the wild violence of nature, it’s difficult not to imagine that the earth herself, a living organism, is retching in response to the abuse and disregard for life.

Moving Beyond the Opposites

We have been talking about the problem of opposites and how, in the absence of any miracle, we seem to be moving indefinitely toward more and more conflict.  Given the advances in our weaponry it is possible that someday someone may simply go too far in their attempts to win, to be right.  How can we hope to change this course of events that are seemingly out of control?  David Bohm says that, “within this mass of contradiction and confusion…everyone appears to agree that what is actually confronting us is a set of problems.”[17]  He goes on to say that while this is a good observation it is, “confusing to describe the resulting situation as a “problem.  Rather, it would be better to say that one was confronted by a paradox.” [18]  This idea of paradox may itself be new and difficult to understand, because western culture especially, has always assumed that we can ‘fix’ problems with something mechanical, or via some medical procedure. Bohm gives the example of a person who is susceptible to flattery, the paradox being that he knows and understands the need to be honest and true to himself, yet he feels this tug to give in to the illusion that is offered by the flattery because it, “releases him from an unbearable sense of inadequacy.”[19]    This type of practice, which is common to all humanity, is especially dangerous when it is backed by a whole set of elaborate religious or pseudo-scientifically structured narratives and myths. It is no less dangerous when it operates in the confused, and undisciplined opportunism that has defined the West for the last century.  This thinking, wherein opportunism and its evil twin capitalism, have become married to religious ideology, has become the dangerous mix that now seems to be dictating political and corporate processes—and our lives. 

Thomas Merton states that, “when the whole world is in moral confusion, when no one knows any longer what to think, and when, in fact everyone is running away from the responsibility of thinking, when man makes rational thought about moral issues absurd by exiling himself entirely into the realm of fictions, and when he expends all his efforts in constructing more fictions with which to account for his ethical failures, then it becomes clear that the world cannot be saved from global war and global destruction (apocalypse) by the mere efforts and good intentions of peacemakers.”[20]   

What is needed to move beyond this tendency for deception, and release us from the terrible plagues that come from this pattern of behavior?  From all that we know, it is clear that what is not needed is some procedure, or another method that simply adds to our confusion and keeps us rooted in the deception.   Bohm suggests that we need to give attention to, become aware of the fact, that this sort of approach and thinking ultimately is all about, “…a set of self-contradictory demands or “needs” so that as long as such thinking and feeling prevail, there is no way to put things right.”[21]  How does one do this, how do we step into the darkness so that we can see the light?

I believe that the sort of awareness that is being called for is all together different than anything we are accustomed to.  It takes a great deal of energy to stay with the awareness and to be a listening presence without feeling the need to react or give in to the old models of behavior.  For me, it is like the experience of standing in the rapids of a rushing river, your feet firmly rooted in the gravel of the streambed, as the torrent of water rushes around your legs.  The force of the water is significant, but it does not knock you over, for because your awareness of how you need to be rooted, to stand in the flow and energy of the water, you are released to experience the water and acknowledge its power.  The same can be true about how we operate within the paradox of opposites, for as we stay with the experience and remain aware, not allowing our minds to escape, we can actually begin to see what is at the core of the paradox, and when this happens it begins to dissolve “like honey into milk”[22] and as Bohm says, “the absurdities can be seen and felt and understood.”[23] 

What lies beyond this warring of opposites, what is this third way that calls to us from deep within our souls? 

The Third Way

When considering the possibility of the “Third Way,” or Tertium Datur, as it has been called by philosophers[24], it might be useful to consider what this third way might look like, what would our world be like if such a way were possible?  For many the word that best describes such a world is peace.  What does that mean, what is peace, how is it possible, and why has it never seemed to last or to bring about the sort of transformations that bring us closer to God?  Perhaps, before we go too far with this idea, the first honest step in our movement toward peace would be to realize and accept the fact that, as Thomas Merton said, “our ideas are perhaps to a great extent illusions and fictions to which we cling to out of motives that are not always perfectly honest.”[25] I submit that it is because of our tendency of allowing our ego to drive, even the very concept of peace – what it is, and what it is not, that, “we prevent ourselves from seeing any good or an practicability in the ideals of our enemies (or those with whom we disagree) – which may, of course, be in many ways even more illusory and dishonest than our own.”[26]

The Qur’an, The Bible and many other ancient holy wisdom texts, have beautiful descriptions of the energy and light from which a peace, unlike any that we have known or considered, is derived.  Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee has described this Peace as being, “born from a place beyond the opposites”[27], He says that, only until we step outside of the toxic contradictions and warring of opposites, will we find this peace and discover that we do not need to fight for our living. 

To open ourselves to this peace requires that we discard many of the ways that we define our lives. No longer can we afford to see ourselves as isolated, walled-off, or superior.  When someone wins and someone loses it is all about our ability to impose our ideas – ourselves, on someone else.  Real peace does not belong to the patterns of control or power dynamics between adversaries that we have been conditioned to buy in to.  Real peace requires that we learn to work with this energy, that is a gift from God, and belongs to all of us.  This can be frightening to some, because letting go of illusions requires trust, and this can be difficult, but as we trust and let go, we will eventually be filled with love. 

This love is a part of our Divine nature — it was what God breathed into us when we were created—and when we open ourselves to this Divine nature within, we become free from the tragic contradiction of opposites and experience transformation.

In the Qur’an this energy (love) is described in the following verse from Sura 24:

Allah is the Light
Of the heavens and the earth,
The parable of His Light
Is as if there were a Niche
And within it a Lamp:
The lamp enclosed in Glass:
The glass as it were
A brilliant star:
Lit from a blessed Tree,
An Olive, neither of the East
Nor of the West,
Whose Oil is well-nigh
Luminous,
Though fire scarce touched it:
Light upon Light!
Allah doth guide
Whom He will
to His Light.

Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee describes this golden light of the oil, as being within us, that it is “the light of our divine nature, which is also a part of life.”[28]  This light that burns from oil that is not from the East or the West can show to us a different way to live, if we can only stop and become aware; if we can stand in the raging river and be present without prejudice. We have a choice to live in this awareness and experience transformation through love, or to remain locked in the dialectic of the continual tragic conflict of opposites.

The Light sura continues to describe the nature of this Light:

In houses, which Allah
Hath permitted to be raised
To honor; for the celebration,
In them, of His name:
In them is He glorified
In the mornings and
In the evenings, (again and again).
By people whom neither
Trade nor sale
Can divert from the Remembrance
Of Allah, nor from regular Prayer.[29]

Important within this verse is the concept of remembering; the idea that to be aware, really aware, means that we continuously call to mind God’s presence.  This is what it means to remember, and when this happens, we celebrate because we experience how we are floating in the Divine; how life abounds around and within us—when we remember, we also forgive and we celebrate, “even in the midst of life’s activities.”[30]

So, as Thomas Merton said, instead of, “loving what you think is peace, love other men and love God above all.” He tells us, that it if we want this real peace that lies beyond the opposites, we must stop hating the warmakers or hating the people that don’t agree with us – rather we must hate instead the “appetites and the disorder in our own soul, which are the causes of war.”[31] 

In Logion 12 of the Gnostic Gospel of Thomas (Nag Hammadi Codice), Yeshua says, that a perspective such as this lies in discovering this Light, that lies beyond the contradiction of opposites, in a place he describes as, “where Heaven and Earth have come into being.”[32] This means this Light is always available, that it is ready to be accessed, but it lies hidden by our forgetfulness.  The key to this treasure, and our divine inheritance, comes not through conflict and continued oppression of one person’s ideas on another, but it comes through, “prayer and remembrance”.[33]

This awareness belongs not to politicians or soldiers or religious leaders but rather to those “whom neither trade nor sale can divert from the remembrance of God”. We must, if we are to move beyond the paradox of the apocalypse, and the tragic consequences that lie in our continued patterns of behavior, seek this awareness and discover the light that our world so desperately needs.  When this light is harnessed, through our souls within the world, and in the universe, balance will be restored and we will be transformed.

“Someday, after mastering the winds, the waves, the tides and gravity, we shall harness for God the energies of love, and then, for a second time in the history of the world we will have discovered fire.”

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

Passages of Initiation

On August 8^th I had a powerful dream, one that was so strong I was compelled to get up and sit down with pen and write down my memory in the dark quiet hours of the night.  This dream followed my own spiritual reflections upon a passage from a book wherein the author stated the following:  “Eventually, when your priorities are clear, the inner light of awareness slowly becomes illuminated, and your perception of reality steadily changes.”[34]  When I read this statement I was drawn to the idea that this light of awareness was directly linked to the clarity of my priorities. Upon reflection I could see that I had reached a place in my journey where I was ready to articulate my priorities and let go of the false and illusory priorities that had come to me from others. Another way I see this, is that this dream was about death, the death of my own illusions and false priorities, and a willingness to allow the Black Madonna (also known as, Mary Queen of the Earth or Mary, the one who guides us through our darkness and represents the inner process of transformation), to “burn out from me all that needs to be discarded.”  For me, this dream is about taking the steps toward clarity of purpose and the journey toward Divine transformation.

“I heard this voice and looked up and there was this group of Native American people standing at the side of the road; two older men in the front I recognized so I went over to them and hugged them.  The older of the men had these elaborately carved wooden dioramas in his hands and he handed one to me and said, “Are you still going to do the ceremony? Mortia is ready to be invoked by you.”  I was looking at the dioramas and this other man said, (as if to the older man) “What about Muon and Nanoon?” The older man said to me, “First, you must accept Mortia and she will strengthen you – she will burn out from you all that needs to be discarded, she is wonderful! When you have her with you, you will be ready to invoke Muon, but Nanoon is all, everything, it is too much for now. Even Muon will be a lot.” I said to him that I was ready to invoke Mortia in the ceremony.  I recall them all smiling and very happy.   I awakened.

Bibliography

Aristotle. The Nicomachean Ethics, Book VIII. [The University of Chicago. 1952]
Bahauddin, Muhammad Shah Naqshband. The Drowned Book. [Harper One, New York 2005]
Bohm, David. On Dialogue. [Routledge Taylor & Francis Group, New York. 1996]
Campbell, Joseph. Mythology [Bill Moyers PBS Series 1983]
Cooper, Rabbi David.  God is a Verb. [The Berkley Publishing Group, New York. 1997]
Gospel of Thomas. Translation by Lynn Bauman, Ph.D
Hobbes, Thomas. Leviathan. [Oxford University Press, 2006]
Khan, Amore. Highlights of Ancient Greek Philosophy. [http://hypatia-lovers.com/AncientGreeks/Section08.html]
Magee, Glenn Alexander. Hegel and the Hermetic Tradition. [Cornell University Press, Cornell 2001]
Merton, Thomas. New Seeds of Contemplation. [Shambhala Library, Boston. 2003]
Plato. The Republic Book VII, [New American Library, New York. 1956]
Querido, René, The Golden Age of Chartres – The Teachings of a Mystery School and the Eternal Feminine. [Floris Books, 1987]
Qur’an, Sura 24
Vaughan-Lee, Llewellyn. Light of Oneness. [The Golden Sufi Center, 2003]
Von Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von. Faust. Translated by Philip Wayne, Contributor Philip Wayne. [Penguin Classics,1950]
Vysheslawzeff, Boris. Two Ways of Redemption. [Eranos Yearbooks, Vol 6, 1936]

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Lately, I have been seeing various politicians and bureaucrats toss out the phrase “the Common Good” perhaps to justify their actions or simply to given us the impression that they actually cared. I have even begun to see people use the term on social media pages as if to make their thoughts or actions sound compassionate and give them some virtue points in their social circle. The point is that I don’t think most people even know what The Common Good means, much less its origins. Furthermore, I don’t believe that to say that you are doing this thing or taking this action out of your concern for the common good sufficiently exonerates you from the harm that your actions might cause in the future. This is especially true if there was substantial evidence that what you were proposing or doing would cause harm and you chose to ignore this information.

Perhaps it would be good to briefly explain what is actually meant by the term, “The Common Good” and its origins. Let’s start with picture below which illustrates the four elements of the Common Good.

The idea of the Common Good is a concept that dates back to antiquity, the Greek philosophers Aristotle and Plato specifically. For Plato, the best political order is the one which best promotes social harmony and an environment of cooperation and friendship among different social groups, each benefiting from and adding to the common good. (Plato Republic. 2003 London: Penguin Books. pp. 462a–b).  For Aristotle, the common good is constituted in the good of individuals. Individual good, in turn, consists in human flourishing—the fulfillment of the human’s purpose—which is the right and natural thing for humans to do. (Aristotle. Nicomachean Ethics http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/nicomachaen.html. I.2.1094b7–10)

One of the earliest references in Christian literature, to the concept of the common good is found in the Epistle of Barnabas in which he says: “Do not live entirely isolated, having retreated into yourselves, as if you were already [fully] justified, but gather instead to seek together the common good.” (this is a non-canonical letter dating from the early 1^st or 2^nd c.)  While the Epistle of Barnabas is not part of the Canon (the bible) it was used by St. Augustine in his discussion of the Common Good, specifically in regards to his question “is the good life social?”  In other words is human well-being found in the good of the whole society, the common good?  (City of GOD, Book XIX).  Later he concludes that the answer to this is YES.

Augustine’s understanding was no doubt influenced by Aristotle, thoughts which were further developed by Thomas Aquinas.   Aquinas’s description of the common good has become or at least is the underpinning of most christian moral theology out of which has grown our modern code of ethics. Consider that most professions from engineering to law and medicine have a code of ethics which in varying ways prohibits the professional of doing any harm. For example, every physician recites the Hippocratic oath before receiving their diploma as a Medical Doctor.

Against that background, the common good has become the central foundation of Christian Social Teaching and I would say that until recently, our very republic. I ran across an interesting letter that was written in 1891 by Pope Leo XIII to address the crisis of the conditions of industrial workers in Europe. In this letter he argued for a position different from capitalism and socialism. The Pope advances the right to private property ownership as fundamental to the common good and the dignity of humans while at the same insisting that the state legislate a living wage for all. 

There is no lack of documentation about the importance of the common good and what that means in practical terms for each person.  I believe that our focus today should be on how our actions when done collaboratively with other community efforts can promote the common good for all of us. This however, requires that we avoid actions where the degree of risk exceeds that associated with the problem to be solved. In regards to today’s crisis of forcing the human population to test the safety and efficacy of a never before used vaccine technology, all without informed consent. This must be called what it is — human medical experimentation — which the last time I checked is amoral and unethical let alone against the law and a violation of our constitutional rights. Furthermore, in principal alone this violates the basic tenants of what is in the best interest of the Common Good when it comes to the dignity of the human person.  However, for those who might still believe that forced participation in a human medical experiment is a contribution to the common good, I would ask them to test this idea against the following criteria.

1. Is the experiment conducted such that it avoids all unnecessary physical and mental suffering and injury?
2. Is there any a priori knowledge that the experiment being conducted could result in the death or disabling of the person?
3. Is proper protection and facilities made available to protect the experimental subjects against even the remote possibilities of injury, disability, or death?
4. Has the experiment been designed and based upon the results of animal experimentation and a knowledge of the natural history of the disease that will justify the performance of the experiment?
5. Has the experiment been independently determined by unbiased scientific professionals from across the human population that there are no other treatments available to treat the current disease and that the disease problem poses such a level of risk to the human population that there is no other possible solution than to experiment on the human population as a whole?

There might be other questions that could be posed but at a minimum these must be answered and if any of these can’t be met then the rational and justification for conducting human medical experiments because it serves the common good is false.

While you take time to ponder what I have said, I would like to draw your attention to another example of how nothing we are doing makes any sense.

In today’s news I read an article in which doctors and scientists are concerned because they have seen cases where “blown” pupils were linked with exposure to prescription glycopyrronium (Qbrexza) wipes. These are the hand wipes that have been used to “disinfect” surfaces that might harbor pathogens. What I found interesting was the level of concern that was shown for a total of six (6) cases. Now, I don’t mean to make light of these cases but, I merely wish to ask how is it that we show such concern when it comes to this issue, that is clearly linked to a toxic material in the hand wipes, but show zero sympathy for anyone who has suffered an adverse reaction to the covid vaccine?

My head spins around when I consider this because, it seems there is a big moral and ethical disconnect. Recently, Senator Ron Johnson, MD, from the state of Wisconsin held a hearing in Washington DC where he invited individuals who had experienced an adverse event following Covid vaccination to share their stories before Congress. No one, not one of his colleagues in Congress attended this hearing. The stories were heartbreaking and perhaps the most shocking thing to me was how each and every person speaking talked about how they had been shunned. Shunned and shamed by their physicians, nurses and public health officials, and in some cases friends and family. They were told that their problems were “psychological”, and that they had nothing to do with the vaccine.

Is this acting for the Common Good? Are these members of Congress who can’t even look at, much less listen to, the victims harmed by taking this vaccine, are their actions for the Common Good? I can’t even begin to understand what is going on and why so many people are turning their back on those who have been injured or harmed by this experimental vaccine.

I am drawn to something my late wife Mary wrote about the human tendency to judge and convict people simply because they are different. She said, “I am drawn to the works of Henri Corbin a French Theologian, Philosopher and mystic where he says, “When we conceive of people in terms of rules and norms, systems and organizations, then they become invisible, we lose the ability to see the divine in the face of the other, and so we lose ourselves.” She goes on to say, that, “when we see people as ‘persons’ not objects then the divine within us discovers the divine that is present in the other and in all creation. The man, woman, child before you is no longer just an object [I would add for today’s context, an object to be manipulated for profit and power] defined by our society but they become a person created in God’s image.”

Our modern culture does everything it can to stereotype people. He/she’s a redneck, or a Trump supporter, or a liberal, or she/ he’s a conspiracy wacko, or he/she’s antivaxx, etc. It is up to us to resist and work toward trying to see the beautiful person with a sacred soul that lies inside of you and in the one before you. I will close with a poem that I wrote that speaks to this revelation – when we open our eyes to divine before us. It starts, this change we want to see, starts with us.

I Saw You

I saw you
on the street, in the rain
bent over, each step
seemed like an effort.
Yet you moved, slowly
up the sidewalk.

Earlier in the day I
saw you crying
outside the bus station.
From your eyes and
heart came the sound
of such pain, a deep agony
from a well of sadness.

Last week you were in
the store, pushing
a stroller and in
anger your struck your
son.  For a brief
moment I saw this
pain in your eyes,
and then it was gone.

An angel is hovering
just above the pain and
the anger — waiting to
be invited to hold our heart
if only we could pause
long enough to. . .

By: j.cowan

This past week I have been bothered by the ever increasing number of articles which are encouraging parents to get their children — 5 – 11 years of age — vaccinated against Covid-19. In spite of all the evidence, which points to not only the sheer stupidity of this requirement, but also the elevated risks of vaccinating children.

Prior to the FDA approving the EUA for children age 5 – 11 a meeting is convened with its Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices. Meetings are open to the public and available online via live webcast. I actually watched some of the meeting which was held on October 26, 2021. Recordings are available on line to anyone that is curious. There were many things that struck me during the meeting and below are listed the most memorable:

• There was no data on the safety of these vaccines in children age 5 – 11;
• There is a documented risk of myocarditis/pericarditis in children age 12 – 18 of 1:5,000 or 1:10,000;
• While knowing this risk the sample size for the determining the safety in children age 5 – 11 was less than 2,500 children, (I would think that if you know of this risk you should at least have a trial size of more than 10,000 children);
• That the clinical trials only followed the children for 2 months.

I was blown away by what I thought to be the most outrageous thing I heard during the meeting. It was a comment by Eric J. Rubin, MD, PhD. Editor-in-Chief, The New England Journal of Medicine. He said, “But we’re never going to learn about how safe this vaccine is unless we start giving it. That’s just the way it goes. That’s how we found out about rare complications of other vaccines like coronavirus vaccine.” When he made this comment I had to pause the video and take a deep breath and ask myself — did I just hear this, no, he must have meant something different. So, I rewound the video a few seconds and heard him again. It made me sick, when did physicians actually think that testing the safety of a drug on anyone but especially children was okay. Did they not each take an oath on receiving their medical degree to, “Do no harm”? I was admittedly appalled. We have not to the best of my knowledge ever believed that testing the safety of a drug or anything on the human population was moral or ethical — what has changed?

I was trying to explain to someone what a risk of 1 in 5,000 actually means as she was having trouble equating this to something she does day-to-day. I told her that on any given day there about 85 commercial planes in the air over the course of 24 hours. If you were to say that there was a 1 in 5,000 risk that a plane would crash that would mean that 17 planes per day would likely crash. If that were the case would you fly? Her answer of course was, no way. Why then are we less concerned about the 1:5,000 risk of a child developing myocarditis after receiving the covid vaccine?

I have included his picture in a post which I recently saw where they inserted his comment at the FDA meeting. By the way, he voted to approve the EUA for children. I look at him and try to imagine what happened in his life where he lost his respect for human dignity. Where did he get off the track and violated his oath? I am just very sad right now.

I recently heard someone remark after hearing that there were people who had died after receiving the vaccine that it was a “small price to pay.” In other words, “I took my risk and now you need to take yours!”and if you die or are injured then its a small price to pay. I think that this is part of the mindset along with the unwillingness to even consider for a moment that they have been duped. More on that later.

Where do I go with this? What can I do to stop this madness? I believe that at the very least I have to reach out to my elected officials in my local community, then the state and federal level. I need to let them know what has been going on and ask them to explain themselves. To help me understand why testing an unproven vaccine technology on children is okay? Ask them to help me understand why we are even considering this when in fact by the CDC’s own data children are the least at risk of dying from Covid-19 and do not, I repeat, do not transmit asymptomatically. They have stated that they have no data to suggest that asymptomatic transmission of disease in unvaccinated persons actually occurs. They do, on the other hand, have a significant amount of data which shows that transmission does occur among the vaccinated.

I will let you know how that goes. If anyone wants a copy of my letters to Congress people, governor, attorney general, and the President and Vice-President; let me know.

Why am I writing a Blog?  What on earth has gotten into me that I feel as if I have something to say?  That anyone would want to hear and take in what I have to say is hard for me to believe but I am willing to at least take the time to share what is on my mind. 

Perhaps a bit of background on me is appropriate; I was born fourth in line, in the middle, bookended by three sisters older than me and one sister and a little brother younger than me.  By the time I was eighteen I had already lived in four different states, North Africa and Spain. The details are stories for another day. For now the shortened version is that I received a degree from College and earned graduate degrees in science and theology. Beyond that I have spent my life learning, sometimes the hard way, but learning nonetheless.

After learning by doing in the world of work and in marriage and parenting, I began to zero in on the deeper question of why I was here or put another way, the nature of my real work in this world. But, it took the death of my wife and the years of grieving for me to begin doing the real work. Somewhere along this journey of doing, the world was hijacked by this illness called SARS-COV2 and I like most others fell into line. . . until I didn’t.

What happened? Well, something was not adding up. When someone says the word pandemic to me I envision bodies in the street and the smell of death hanging over the world like a dark cloud. That is not what I was seeing – yes, I was hearing of hospitals being filled to capacity and scores of people dying but still something didn’t add up. While I knew a few people who had been diagnosed with the disease called Covid-19, myself included, none of them were hospitalized and no one I knew died. Sometime in late April of 2020 I began to sense that we were being subjected to a global psychological operation (PSYOP). I was careful and didn’t share this opinion very widely because I knew it was a sense or feeling and I needed more evidence.

Having a science background I found it rather easy to start examining the data that was emerging from the CDC, WHO and physicians across the country and around the world treating patients. What began to emerge for me were two things, first, that there were readily available treatments for this disease and two, that there were things each of us could do to bolster our immune system so that if we did contract the disease our bodies would be strong enough to mount an effective response. This discovery was in stark contrast to the narrative that was being presented by mainstream media and most social media platforms. That was curious to me, why on earth would the media and journalists everywhere not be interested in the efficacy about viable and successful treatments?

Somewhere in the middle of 2020 President Trump announced that he was going to fast-track the development of a vaccine, it was a campaign called “Warp Speed.” I found this to be rather odd because if we have available effective and safe treatments for the symptoms of infection by SARS-COV2 and these treatments were keeping people from going to the hospital and dying then why launch an effort to “fast-track” the development of a vaccine? I learned through my research, that to develop a vaccine or any new drug it takes years not months or days and it has to be proven safe and effective which means animal trials are required. This whole “Warp Speed” initiative was by its design, bypassing animal trials and going straight to human trials. When I understood this I was, to say the least, deeply disturbed.

As the significance of this understanding became more clear I was physically sick. The medical and scientific sector was in effect violating its own standard of care and the scientific method by foregoing animal trials and moving straight to human trials. To do this with a drug from a known pharmaceutical class would never pass muster, yet to do this with a totally new class of pharmaceuticals — gene biologicals — was, in my opinion, unconscionable.

As the plan started to be socialized across the media and on various social platforms I was struck by how everyone seemed to be okay with this idea. It was as if people were under some sort of hypnotic spell. It made no sense to me. When I tried to talk with friends and family about these observations supported by documents in the public record, I literally was accused of being one or all of the following: a Trump supporter, a fundamentalist Christian, a conspiracy theorists, an antivaxer, and even anti-science. To these accusations I was left speechless — what on earth was going on?

When the “vaccines” began to be rolled out, it was clear to me that these were experimental. The very method by which they were rolled out made this clear as they were approved under an Emergency Use Authorization or EUA. When you look at the details of what this means you will discover that these “vaccines” are acknowledged as being experimental and that they can be used only insofar that there is no alternative treatment. Once again I found myself scratching my head because there clearly were safe and effective treatments on the market and they were being used around the world with tremendous success. So, what was going on?

Here we are now getting ready to wave goodbye to 2021 and the “vaccines” have been in distribution since late December 2020. We have been testing these in population groups that were never part of the initial Phase One trial and yet we are telling people that these are safe and effective. It was mid-summer 2021 when the idea of “vaccine” booster shots began to be discussed, most people thought that was something that only isolated groups of people might require. Yet, here we are and it is quite clear that boosters are being marketed and the idea of frequent “top-ups” (boosters) is starting to become a reality and no one seems to have a problem with any of this. Concurrent with this there is clear evidence that the “vaccine” is a failure on all counts, yet we have states and even the federal government mandating that everyone must be vaccinated or else lose their job — am I the only one who things this is crazy?