Married Catholic clergy

Yes and no. I had no expectations...but I didn't expect a mystery answer relating to a movie I had not seen.

The straight forward answer when it came around was more than acceptable, but the ire raised in questioning and the effort required makes me lean toward walking away rather than inquiring and receiving more of the same

I guess it should have been expected. Exactly the same responses I got in primary school by asking questions of Sunday school teachers and preachers.
 
Yes and no. I had no expectations...but I didn't expect a mystery answer relating to a movie I had not seen.
But I described what happened with the thistle. You didn't have to have seen the movie.
Exactly the same responses I got in primary school by asking questions of Sunday school teachers and preachers.
When I was in school, I remember an old priest telling us about Adam and Eve, and so I asked him: "But were Adam and Eve real people?" And he answered: "Yes. Real people." Well I was quite young then, but I remember thinking: "Uh uh, no, I don't buy that one."

I simply formed my own opinion. It didn't wreck my childhood. I wasn't a poor abused little kid about it. I didn't have to believe it. I used my own God given sense to disagree. I wasn't deeply wounded for life; it didn't turn me off 'God' for the rest of my life, and I haven't had to spend the rest of my life bashing religion.

Whatever ...
 
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Is it still inaffext when the US border patrol takes it away and tosses it in a box and sends your kids to a different cage
No hard feelings @wil

Remember it started with me trying to explain how the personal character of the priest as a channel does not affect the quality of the Christ blessing.

So I got back the above response, as if it's my personal fault the rosary blessing doesn't stop border cops putting children in cages. One just gets enough of it.

EDIT: Hopefully this thread has run to the end of it's string. Peace, brother.
 
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. It didn't wreck my childhood. I wasn't a poor abused little kid about it. I didn't have to believe it. I used my own God given sense to disagree. I wasn't deeply wounded for life; it didn't turn me off 'God' for the rest of my life, and I haven't had to spend the rest of my life bashing religion.
.No hard feelings @@wil
Lol
 
Sometimes it's hard for us to understand answers that differ a lot from our expectations, no?
Quite, as evidenced by the disparaging use of (LOL) whenever a POV does not align with his particular mindset.
So I got back the above response, as if it's my personal fault the rosary blessing doesn't stop border cops putting children in cages. One just gets enough of it.
A body does grow weary.
 
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I think we are all full of expectations

One of my stock phrases is that we live in a world of anticipations and epitaphs. One way of moving on into the "now" is in learning how others experience the world, and with empathy toward them, to amend our own "expectations". This can happen beyond our calculations.

With rosary's and such, I simply relate to the words of Lama Govinda, that "the only extension to the present is intensity". Nothing is happening "behind the scenes" as initiated by "other beings" of another dimension. No "message" is being transmitted by a transcendent being who is seeking our attention, which we can ignore if we choose, perhaps to our cost. Something is happening - yes, Reality is happening, experienced with presence or not, with various levels of "intensity". This is a non-dual way of being (or non-being if we wish to be technical!)

"In the whole if the universe there is nothing that is concealed" (Dogen)not

Asking questions of another, we hear the answer, or not. And the exchange is inter-dependent.
 
Nothing is happening "behind the scenes" as initiated by "other beings" of another dimension. No "message" is being transmitted by a transcendent being who is seeking our attention, which we can ignore if we choose, perhaps to our cost. Something is happening - yes, Reality is happening,
You seem so sure?

... transcendent being who is seeking our attention ...
Do you think the transcendent being needs to seek our attention? As in the I Ching, hexagram 4: It is not I who seeks out the (young) seeker, it is he who seeks me. When he enquires the first time, I respond to him, but if he continues to badger with questions that is an impropriety and a lack of respect, and I will refuse to answer. Paraphrased

Reality is happening ...
But is reality limited to the 'reality' that we are able to perceive with our five natural human senses and the telescopes and other instruments we have invented as extensions of our natural senses? Where does natural end and spititual begin?
 
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You seem so sure?

... transcendent being who is seeking our attention ...
Do you think the transcendent being needs to seek our attention? As in the I Ching, hexagram 4: It is not I who seeks out the (young) seeker, it is he who seeks me. When he enquires the first time, I respond to him, but if he continues to badger with questions that is an impropriety and a lack of respect, and I will refuse to answer. Paraphrased

Reality is happening ...
But is reality limited to the 'reality' that we are able to perceive with our five natural human senses and the telescopes and other instruments we have invented as extensions of our natural senses? Where does natural end and spititual begin?

Sure of what? I do not understand.

I must be poor at explaining myself.

I feel you are answering someone else. Sorry.
 
Oh, I see. Sorry. Thank you.

I think the argument of/by "relegation" comes into it. Not refutation, but relegation. One enfolds the other. That diversification follows total trust. Then non-duality is realised within duality.

We can obviously continue to debate which subsumes the other, if we wish to have our pound of flesh!
 
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There is a story - one of my favorites - relevant here (and on the Salvation v Enlightenment thread) that I often tell. Each time I think of it myself it seems to morph and evolve.

A newly enlightened westerner is strolling around a monastery with an old zen master, who only speaks broken English. As he approaches every statue of the Buddha the old master stops and bows deeply. The westerner, looking on with evident disdain, eventually says:- "I say, surely we are above this sort of thing now? Speaking for myself, I would as soon spit upon these statues as bow to them. " The old master replies:- "OK. You spit, I bow."
 
Nice one. I'm fond of this one: "Enlightenment and a dollar will buy you a can of soda pop".
 
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It's worth recognising that we are symbolisers, liturgists, ritualisers, ceremonialists ... we are makers.

It's inescapable, it's in our nature, it's what we do ... If nature abhors a vacuum, then human nature abhors a void of meaning ... we are seekers ...
 
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