Richard Rohr invites us to see Godding as a verb and as the flow of love. That flow, he maintains is the “divine dance.” He reminds us that: “The contemplative mind refuses to objectify things.” He also insists that “Trinity is all about relations and connection.” Relations and connection imply conversing which also fits the Johannine concept that God is Word.
I am relabeling the traditional names for the aspects of the Trinity. In place of “Father” I am using the term “Creating;” in place of “the Son” I am using “Connecting” and in place of “Spirit” I am using “Consecrating.” As Neuro-Linguistic Programing (NLP) has taught us, converting nouns to verbs changes our perspective and our understanding. Using the gerund form of the verb provides a handy way of expressing these concepts—hence my tendency to put “…ing” at the ends of certain words.
The relationship between Godding and Humaning can then be framed as continuous conversing. When the conversing stops, then so ends what we know as life. It is better to use the word “conversing” instead of the word “conversation” because conversing focuses on the process while conversation would easily be seen as implying objective content. When people say, “we are conversing,” they are also saying “we are relating.” Life as a Humaning is constant conversing at both the existential level and the ontological level. Everyone engages in self-conversing. A variety of references to this reality turn up in literature and in ordinary, daily conversing. There are, of course, lots of jokes about self-conversing including ones like “I like talking to myself because I’m never wrong.” I know that when I’m alone I engage in considerable amounts of conversing with myself and that happens whether I open my mouth and say words out loud or whether the conversing occurs within my physical body without becoming an externally verifiable sound. This reality can be demonstrated by the fact that sometimes victims of strokes can lose the power to articulate words but retain the ability to understand the conversing going on around them and probably within them. This document is an expression of my self-conversing.
Consider the relationship between consciousness and conversing. There is considerable discussion amongst physicists and philosophers that suggests that consciousness (or consciousnessing) cannot be destroyed. This suggests that it exists at the ontological level as well as an existential level. The curious phenomenon of self-conversing could be an indicator that consciousnessing involves conversing at least with the self. Human beings, a.k.a. Humanings, are fractals of Godding. Conversing is a fundamental aspect of that fractal reality. In the first chapter of Genesis, God is reported as saying “let us make humankind in our image.” One commentator indicates that image is not physical appearance but refers to relationship and activity. It is also been suggested that the image of God in humankind refers to the male-female dyad and not just to one gender. This concept would certainly cover the idea that humankind shares ontological conversing with Godding.
Grant Soosalu suggested that the pelvic-brain and the head-brain engage in co-creative activities. I would suggest that the pelvic-brain’s contribution to this is passion and the head-brain’s contribution is rational problem-solving. The gut-brain seems to be the center of action. The highest value of the gut-brain is courage and it includes things like core identity, self-preservation, and mobilization.
Godding consciousness self-expresses as creating, connecting, and consecrating. (This is what the Christian doctrine of the Trinity says.) Those three aspects of Godding Consciousness are linked to Humaning efforts to create, connect and consecrate. This is a way that Humanings express their fractal relationship to Godding consciousness. While we need to discuss the components of this experience individually, the reality of quantum entanglement would indicate that the events that take place within the Humaning are simultaneous. The more I think about this the more I am inclined to believe that the overwhelming reality of the Humaning experience is that we react somapsychicly (as opposed to psychosomatically). There is plenty of evidence to suggest that our physical responses which are driven by gut-brain, heart-brain and pelvic-brain begin before our head-brain has devised an explanation of the situation.
We talk a lot about things that are exciting as if they are “sexy.” Not only are people considered to be sexy but so are objects in our environment, processes in which we engage, and our favorite ideas. Perhaps the application of the term “sexy” to these situations is a recognition of the involvement of the pelvic-brain and responding to certain objects, and persons or events in our environment.
Creating, connecting, and consecrating are the three C’s of conversing. I understand that these are dynamics of the self-conversing of Godding. Because of our entanglement with Godding and the fractal nature of the relationship, we find those same three C’s in human life.
Creativity in Humanings can degenerate into imitation; connecting can degenerate into isolation (via rejection or withdrawal); and consecrating can degenerate into addiction whether that be psychological or physiological. Humanings tend to protect themselves by developing psychological defenses against acknowledging the degenerate nature of these concepts. For example, we make imitation to be a form of flattery, isolation tends to become the image of the self-made person, and addiction (aka obsession) tends toward “healthy” habits. However, this process results in a denial of the fractal nature of Humanings. The denial tends toward entropy and this ultimately moves Humanings toward becoming dissipative structures and thus incoherent beings.
This whole process is an exercise in denying the fractal relationship that we have with Godding Consciousness. This may be one reason that many naturalists feel that when we deny our connection with the earth we are pretending that we are not part of the environment in which we live.
The creating, connecting, and consecrating aspects of Godding Consciousness are a coherent, coordinated reality. When Humanings allow a degeneration of aspects of their fractal nature, they disrupt the concept of a coherent, coordinated reality.
There are many examples in various forms of spiritual literature about Humanings being at war with themselves. These examples are illustrative of the disruption of coherence. Usually these examples are also used as illustrations of how Humanings are in conflict with Godding consciousness. For example, St. Paul talks about being at war with his own body (Romans 7:18-19: “I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. 19For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do.” Attridge, Harold W. HarperCollins Study Bible. HarperOne. Kindle Edition. St. Augustine says: “I was deeply disturbed in spirit, angry with indignation and distress that I was not entering into my pact and covenant with you, my God. . ..” He describes this state as an “agony of hesitation.” [Doubt Jennifer Michael Hecht, 2003, p.196] John Donne is also an example of a person who gets into spiritual warfare with the Godding Consciousness. Donne talks about God shaking his body and says God “set[s] this house on fire and fills the house with smoke . . . in order to make an entrance into me.”
These men are describing themselves as being incoherent, that is with their various brains being unsynchronized with each other. mBraining theory talks about the need for the multiple brains to function in a coherent fashion and highlights the reality that when our multiple brains are not functioning in synchronized fashion that we are indeed “incoherent” in our conversing (both with self, with others, and with Godding Consciousness).
Carl's Cogent Comments 