Monthly Archives: October 2012

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Treasure In Earthen Vessels; God Works Through Cracked Pots (UPDATED 10-28-2012)

SCROLL TO BOTTOM TO HEAR THE TALK I GAVE AND SEE THE PREZI/PRESENTATION I GAVE TO 1,000 WOMEN)

The story of the woman at the well is a marriage proposal and is a great place to begin in sharing how we are treasures in earthen vessels. It is strangely reminiscent of the song we sang as children “first comes love then comes marriage then comes the baby in the baby carriage”. First there was God who is love. Then the word was made flesh. Jesus is the Bridegroom.

That childhood song was a song about the holy Trinity and the call of our God into the marriage relationship of the bride and bridegroom and how we will be transformed into new creations. Theology of the Body gives us a beautiful lens from which to fully understand what the old Baltimore catechism said when it said we were created to know love and serve God to give you him forever in heaven.

The woman at the well is symbolic of all of our brokenness because of the sin in our lives, all of the inadequacies and all of the ways in which we fall short and yet God comes to us and seeks us out.

This is the marriage proposal. We are made for connection we are made for relationship.

Where we struggle in this is when SHAME gets in the way of allowing others to truly see who we are or to allow others to truly see us.

That’s where vulnerability comes in.

VULNERABILITY IS NOT WEAKNESS. How many think it takes vulnerability to speak in front of an audience of 800 people? It is true that vulnerability involves emotional risk and uncertainty but what vulnerability really means is to have courage.

Vulnerability is birthplace of creation and transformation. To create is to make something that never existed before like the unique and unrepeatable person. When we have the courage to really open ourselves to look into our hearts and even more importantly let others really and truly “see” us, we become transformed. “ Grace perfects our nature”.

In the garden, we were naked without shame.

“Naked without shame” is about knowing who we were as persons made in Gods image and likeness and our nature was perfect. When we fell from Grace due to original sin shame entered into the world.

Shame is the devil’s proposal about who God is and who we are.

Shame says one of two things; “you will never be good enough” or “who do you think you are”.

Adam and Eve covered themselves because they said yes to the devil’s proposal. Because they were unwilling to be vulnerable enough to go to God and trust in who He said we are, they fell and the consequence was sin.

A very basic understanding of sin is separation from God. In the Old Testament sin is described as a transgression. It is not just a violation of the law, but because the law was meant to protect as persons and to protect our world and our environment and God’s creation it is also a violation of God and violation of us so every time we separate from God and transgress upon his will we transgress upon ourselves and of all of creation. Sin, missing the mark and falling short of the glory of God. So with three

Sin has its effects always in wounding. Sin always wounds. There is no sin that doesn’t wound. It wounds us and it wounds others around us. We have no possibility of living in this world without being wounded.

What SHAME does is it takes the guilt we feel and turns the belief of “What I did was bad” into the belief that “I am bad”.

SHAME then makes us feel that we are unworthy of connection. It is in believing we are not thin enough, beautiful enough, successful enough or smart enough that SHAME turns our focus from who we are as unique and unrepeatable persons into who we think we “should be” or “should be doing”.

Shame makes us feel we are not good enough and that we will never be good enough.

The story of the woman at the well reminds us of whom we truly are which is the beloved of the Bridegroom and that God desires to marry us.

God knows all the places we have failed him and will fail him and yet he created us anyways. Out of all of the potential people God could’ve created we were chosen to be created and to come into the world to exist in fact of this very particular time in history.

But it gets better than this! God is calling all of us to enter into the redemption of the world! God could have chose to redeem the world anyway he liked. What he decided was that he wanted all of us to enter into this great work with him.

He does this by transforming our wounds much like his own were from the power of the cross. His “cracks” were in fact the greatest gift given to the entire world. Our wounds, our cracks, our inadequacies become the very place, once transformed like a firing kiln to a clay pot, becomes the very form from which God can best shine through, pour out of and be given to others. He is magnified by our smallness and our weakness.

God is calling you and is issuing a marriage proposal in which He desires to transform you and touch the lives of those around you through your fiat.

A treasure in earthen vessels is about our unique and unrepeatable personhood, it is about our immortal soul chosen by God to be called into existence. The earthen vessel reveals that the person we are is feminine or masculine and also is a sign that we are called to love like the trinity. But the earthen vessel also speaks to us about form.

Form, and the material from which it is made reveal its purpose. If I held up a cup and asked, “What is it?” unless we were from another world where they do not use cups, we would know it is a cup and that it holds liquid. We know understand what it is because of its form

Our form is meant to be a visible sign of Christ to the world. It is not just our masculine or feminine person that our form reveals but it tells a story of the Bride and the Bridegroom.

In Caryll Houselander’s book “The Reed of God” she uses three forms to reveal how Christ “shines” through our cracks”, The reed, the chalice, and the birds nest.

The Reed grows on the riverbanks and must be cut with a knife and then hallowed out with notches cut into it to create its form. Some of our stories include this kind of shaping. We are cut and hallowed out. We may think that we have nothing to give, our brokenness, or even our sinfulness might make us believe that God could never possibly choose us. The woman at the well is a reminder that God does chose us and when we allow him to redeem us, it is as if we are pressed to the lips of the master and when His Spirit blows through the reed, lyrical music is created because of the hallowing out and the notches that had been cut.

Some of our stories are like a chalice. A chalice is made from gold that has to be first hewn from the mud, then forged in fire before it can be poured into it’s mold. It then has to be pounded by a mallet to create its form. For those whose forming came from the succession of blows or from the purification of fire, they may understand that they are like Gold, that they are good, but they may not believe themselves worthy of greatness. It is the age-old question “Who do you think you are? If we remember that we are the beloveds of Christ, that He called us into being that we are His, then we remember who we are. A chalice is used to offer the great sacrifice of the mass. For those whose form is like the chalice, God desires to fill you with the water and blood that gushed from His sacred heart so that through your form you can pour Him out to a thirsting world.

Finally, for those who are shaped like the nest of a bird, the soft downy feathers of a tender mother bird’s breast create the form. For those who may have been formed by loving parents, in a prayerful home and have no painful formation as part of their story the temptation could be to say that they do not have a unique or inspiring story. Those whose story includes love, fidelity and affirmation are not only hope and inspiration for the world but it also creates a person more fully capable of revealing Christ. This story is an example of how each of us is called to become tabernacles.

We are to bring Christ to the world with our own hands and feet, with our own stories.

Each of our stories is as unique as our fingertips, as unique as our personhood.

We are the vessel and form helps us to tell the story of who Christ is and who we are in Christ. We should never underestimate the power of conversion to work through even the most broken of vessels.

Lazarus is an example of just such a vessel. He was dead. A rotting corpse and according to chief mourners “stinking” and yet when Christ shone through Lazarus, an entire city and now every generation to come, was converted through his story and through his form.

For me, my form is the reed. I have been hallowed out, whittled and cut into. The story I have to tell is of being transformed through my children and my husband.

I’ve been able to identify specific attributes or virtues that God has helped to develop in me for each one of my children.

For Maegan it was vulnerability, for Sara it was selfless love, for Elisha it was the need of affirmation, for Gabriel it was submission, for Annamarie it was long-suffering, for Mercedes it was Mercy, for Christopher it was joy, for Jonah it was perseverance.

For each child I have received a healing of a major wound, crack, or notch cut into me. God transformed it and the grace He has given to me in each of these areas have brought me freedom to love more rightly

Each time I was cracked, wounded or cut into because of my sin or the sin of others, the enemy proposed a lie so to enter into my heart and bring me to a place of shame.

Christ helps to expose the lies and bring healing to our wounded hearts and when we become vulnerable and allow Him in to truly see us, Christ transforms our wounds and they become like stained glass windows illuminating and radiating God’s beauty, God’s light, God’s truth to the world.

They will know us by our joy they will know us by our love. In this year of faith we are called to transformation. The new evangelization is about allowing Christ to permeate us. We embrace our greatness when we dare to take what we know in our heads and connect it to our hearts. When we move from knowing God, to being in an intimate relationship with Him.

When we allow ourselves to truly be seen and to really see the person God puts in front of us everyday is when we enter into one another’s story of redemption. God works through cracked pots, because His greatness is magnified in our weakness. The truth is that the enemy puts salt in our wounds because he is terrified that if we actually go into the wounds and bring Christ there with us, we would discover that when Christ redeems them, they become like jewels in the Crown of the creator.

You are a treasure in an earthly vessel and your form reveals a call to love and to be loved from the bridegroom to His bride. All it takes is your “fiat” which is the greatest “I DO” you can ever utter.

LISTEN TO MY TALK HERE

http://archive.org/details/TreasureInEarthenVesselsGodWorksThroughCrackedPots

HERE IS THE SLIDESHOW

http://prezi.com/rf8re5qrwol-/treasure/

THE POWER OF VULNERABILITY

LISTENING TO SHAME

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ANATOMY OF A WOUND (Inner Healing Talks updated with link to Audio)

If you are unable to find freedom, if you are so wounded from sin that you wonder why it is that you still feel as if you are nailed to your cross rather than carrying it, then please listen to this audio.  It has changed my life and brought me more freedom than over 20 years of traditional counseling.

http://ia701502.us.archive.org/14/items/AnatomyOfAWound/3-01AnatomyOfAWound.m4a

Here is the link to listen to the entire series of talks:
http://www.onlypeople.org/healing/

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Good Vibrations

Studies have suggested, after scientists studied a group of Monks that practiced Gregorian Chant, that it’s use can and does alleviate fatigue, depression and illness because of the herz ranges (around 8000) and vibration patterns of the sounds.

BRAIN NEURONS WITHOUT STIMULATION

 

BRAIN NEURONS WITH STIMULATION

 

What would you think if I told you that Gregorian chants creates a harmonic vibration that has been proven in studies to eliminate fatigue, heal and cure disease and illness, extinguish depression and enable the person who sings Gregorian chant, to subsist on as little as 2 hours of sleep a day because it stimulates the part of the cerebral cortex through creating a separate vibration with our bones at a completely different vibration and hertz level that, when the cranium and skull vibrate at this frequency, acts like a magnifier as the bones of the head amplify the vibration affecting the brain at an even more magnified capacity.

 

I wonder if that is why we put bones of the martyrs under our churches or keep the bone fragments as relics, because when their bones are present before us and with us, and as we as a mystical body of Christ “sing” or chant this holy music that even at a scientific decibel level brings grace (this is the foundation of TOB) that their bones “sing” with us and the song vibrations that hum with us, could it be because God is free from space and time, is somehow allowing a supernatural grace to flow from their glorified bodies (if God is free from time and space to take the merits of the cross and apply it to create Mary Immaculate, then why could he not allow the bones in our presence of the Saints to emanate with a glorified song that we could mysteriously receive our own healing from as the vibrations frequency, creates it’s song in our own bones?

 

It would make sense as to why we have so many people on anti=depressants and other medications, which I think is a tool of the enemy to numb us to the inspirations and gifts of the Holy Spirit. Perhaps God desires to “amplify” the healing power of the Eucharist but allowing music to be a conduit of healing grace that we receive bodily, in the form of the songs very essence which is not from the voice but the unique vibrations of Gregorian Chant, it is found in Handel’s Messiah, the Ave Maria…. perhaps these unique vibrations are a gift for the soul that we receive somatically because of the sacramentality of the Body.

Can you tell the difference?? from Corpus Christi Watershed on Vimeo.

 

Then it would make sense why the enemy has had this all but removed and why we as a society are dying, diseased, depressed and fatigued. I would even go so far as to speculate that a deliberate infiltration of liturgical music has occurred in which the songs vibration patterns, frequency and harmonic structure is not only opposite of Gregorian Chant and Handel’s Messiah and the Ave Maria, but it is more closely resembles that of noise when tested by computers. “Here I am Lord” composed by Dan Schutte, an ex-Jesuit Priest ordained and has left the priesthood and living in San Francisco.

 

Dan Schutte’s song, His song, “Here I am Lord” vibrates on a harmonic or wave length levels almost identical to noise.

 

When sang, the vibrations of the chant, create a separate vibration at it’s own herz level (around 2000) that emanate from the bones. It is as if the bones “sing” say the scientists and this “song” is measurable.  More specifically the cranium, or skull and jaw bone, resonate at this herz level. The eardrum and stapes vibrate from this unique vibration and stimulate a very precise center of the cerebral cortex of the brain. The monks that were studied were able to subsist on less than 4 hours of sleep, some less than 2 hours of sleep a day, were healed of illness and experienced an overall sense of well being. When scientist studied these same monks who, due to an edict halting the practice of Gregorian Chant, were studied after they discontinued the singing of Gregorian chant, they became ill, depressed and fatigued to the point that many were unable to function or complete their duties or rigorous schedules. Once this was made known, they were given permission to once again sing Gregorian Chant and the monks suffering from illness and depression were healed. Here is more on this amazing discovery.

 

Alfred Tomatis is a French physician and specialist in otolaryngology, who has been working with understanding the function of the human ear and the importance of listening for forty-five years. In this connection we will look at his discoveries of sound, which ”charge” the listener. Tomatis found that sounds that contain high frequency harmonics, such as those found in Gregorian chants, are extremely beneficial. It is these high frequencies around 8000 Hz, which are capable of ”charging” the central nervous system and the cortex of the brain. In many of the sacred chants of the different tradition, the main out put of high frequency harmonics are dominant, which offer stimulation to the brain.

 

 

Tomatis himself discovered this when he was called to help a Benedictine monastery, where the monks were suffering of fatigued and depression. He found out, that they usually six to eight hours of chanting – due to a new decree – has been ceased, and within a short period of time the monks was unable to perform their many duties. When Tomatis re-established their daily chanting, the monks were soon able to continue their rigorous schedule of work and prayers.

Here is Theology of The Body in practice; When we listen to Gregorian Chants, our bodies experience a supernatural phenomenon that affects our well being.

 

 

For Tomatis, a major aspect of the therapeutic affects of vocal harmonics lies in the conduction of the bones, which are stimulated by resonance of around 2000 Hz. He says:

 

”The sound produced is not in the mouth, not in the body, but, in fact, in the bones. It is all the bones in the body which are singing and it is like a vibrator exciting the walls of the church, which also sing.”

 

Bone conduction’s actually amplifies the sound through resonance of the cranium and the skull. According to Tomatis, bone conduction stimulates the stapes muscle of the ear, which he believes is the key to stimulating and charging the brain. Tomatis himself manages with a small amount of sleep, less than four hours a night. He attributes this to his listening to sound, which are rich in high harmonics.

 

 

Tomatis has described a phenomenon, which has been called ”The Tomatis Effect”, that states that the voice can only create and duplicate those sounds, which the ear is able to hear. This means that until you are able to hear various overtones, you will not be able to create them in your voice.

 

Listening is undoubtedly a key, not only in obtaining the ability of creating vocal harmonies and improvement of the voice, but of understanding aspects of other levels of consciousness. In the Hindu tradition there is a great awareness of listening as a tool for enhanced consciousness. The art of listening to the outer and inner sound.

http://wavesimon.free.fr/GENERI%20MUSICALI.htm

 

Perhaps the architecture and the acoustics of a church DO matter. Perhaps the way we sing and what we sing DOES influence how we pray, how we believe and even our health. Maybe so many people today are on medications for depression and illnesses and experience a physical and mental fatigue because the very healing gifts of the mass are being removed or altered in such a way as to prevent the body from being able to participate in the gifts God clearly desires to be experienced in and through the body. We are body and soul and God designed it this way therefor it makes sense that the designer would have a reason for giving us the senses and a reason the mass is designed to be experienced through them. So why is it we are not singing Gregorian Chants? I don’t know the answer to that, but clearly the same organization that decided to provide all of the parishes around the world with new hymnals with new music, are making millions of dollars as each Diocese keeps buying their products.

 

PLEASE READ “New Mass Same Heretical Music” to see WHY this is significant!

http://embracingyourgreatness.blogspot.com/2011/05/new-mass.html


AVE MARIA VIBRATION AND FREQUENCY PATTERNS:

 

 

Notice how simply and beautiful the patterns are. It appears like a ladder, one in which our souls can climb to ascend to God as our souls receive the outpouring of Grace when we receive communion.

 

 

 

HANDEL’S MESSIAH VIBRATION AND FREQUENCY PATTERNS:

This one too has an equal amount of space with sound and silence that aspires us upward to the spiritual plane.

 

Then there is the new Comtemporary music that must of us all sing at mass.  Please notice how the following structure is more noise than silence.

 

 

 

HERE I AM LORD by Dan Schutte Vibration and Frequency Patterns:

 

 

 


NOISE VIBRATIONS AND FREQUENCY PATTERNS

 

Noise takes up all of the space with it’s darkness. Darkness is actually measured scientifically by the absence of light. I have heard Dr. Waldstein say that there is no such thing as hate, only the absence of love. So we see that the more absence of silence within a song, the more darkness that it provides. Perhaps this darkness is a blocking agent of the enemy. Theresa Tomeo has a whole book on Noise. I think that noise is an agent of the enemy and blocks us from being able to receive all God desires to give us.

 

 

MILEY CYRUS SONG PARTY IN THE USA FREQUENCY AND VIBRATION PATTERNS