Struggling With The Assumption

Struggling with the Assumption. " (See Previous post here)
But these insights from Richard Rohr below gives me a way forward.....

We teach not the way that philosophy is taught, but in the way that the Spirit teaches. We desire to teach spiritual things spiritually.”— 1 Corinthians 2:13
Great religion is full of paradoxes. A paradox is something that appears to be contradictory, but if seen from another angle or with a different mind, is not a contradiction at all but a deep truth.
We Catholics love paradoxes: Jesus is fully human and yet fully divine. Mary is a virgin and yet mother. The Eucharist is bread and Jesus at the same time. God is three and one at the same time. These are logical contradictions and cannot be processed with a dualistic mind.


To deal with spirituality, you need different software, which I call contemplation or nondual consciousness. Paul simply called it understanding spiritual things spiritually (1 Corinthians 2:6-16).
Once we stopped teaching the contemplative mind, we set up the Western world for rationalism and secularism. We lost our unique access point, our "new mind" and alternative consciousness.
We told Christians to keep believing these doctrines, which are always paradoxes, but we no longer gave them the proper software with which to understand them. Is it any surprise that atheism emerged primarily in the Christian West?
Richard Rohr, On the Threshold of Transformation

So what images are going to help me with this ?
Many of the images for the Assumption are too sentimental and over the top  but there was something about this one that drew me in- maybe the slightly tattered world weary look of the crown with a chipped edge did it for me.


It's almost as if Christ is welcoming Mary home after a hard journey on this earth. The small and gentle "Crown Tip" to Mary that might say  "You're home now. All is well." 
What's that in His hand ?- a gift of a heavenly i-pad maybe, ( love the jacket cover), just to keep in touch with what's going on down below, or a book of poetry He wrote just for her... I hope God writes poetry .


Crowning of the Virgin : Paris 13th Century. Source Flickr.
Enhanced by Zemanta

No comments: