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Ancient Law of Hospitality

Reader comment on Thomas Berry's passage ...

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    On Dec 21, 2010 Pancho wrote:

    My family calls me Pancho and I'd like you to know that I love you all. 

     
    When the Universal Love is flowing through us, are we giving or receiving? As the generosity of life manifests through us, from the sole of our feet to the top of the head, from our hearts to our eyes, how not to be blessed with the ultimate reality of interconnectedness? This blessing flowed through some of us last Wednesday, during the precious dance of giving and receiving. Many of us didn't know if we were giving or receiving at that point... These were the 3 points that flowed through me:
     
    1. Resistance to Civil Government: Thoreau and Gandhi 
    2. Family
    3. Radical Hospitality
     
    1. Resistance to Civil Government: Thoreau and Gandhi 
    During the circle Gandhi and Thoreau were mentioned and immediately Thoreau's essay on Civil Disobedience came to mind/heart. As a compassionate resident of the Earth, Thoreau was fiercely opposed to the imperial behavior of his government and its endless wars --like the one against the Mexican government in the 1840s where the U.S. government colonized the present day states of California, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, most of Arizona and Colorado, and parts of Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, and Wyoming. When Gandhi read Thoreau's essay he fully understood the importance and similarities between the abolition of slavery movements in the parts of the Planet we call the U.S. and South Africa. On Gandhi's words:
     
    "Thoreau was a great writer, philosopher, poet, and withal a most practical man, that is, he taught nothing he was not prepared to practice in himself. He was one of the greatest and most moral men America has produced. At the time of the abolition of slavery movement, he wrote his famous essay On the Duty of Civil Disobedience. He went to gaol for the sake of his principles and suffering humanity. His essay has, therefore, been sanctified by suffering. Moreover, it is written for all time. Its incisive logic is unanswerable."
     
    For Gandhi this was no other thing but satyagraha: clinging to truth, exercising the soul-force in the face of injustice to touch the hearts of all people involved in the conflict to convert them from opponents into sisters and brothers. Satyagraha was a way to disobey inhumane systems/governments and, at the same time, a way to follow the path of truthful means that creates real harmony.
     
    2. Family
    Why do I always introduce myself as: "My family calls me Pancho"? It is because pretty much everyone calls me Pancho. I see everybody as my family and when a person calls me "Pancho" she or he --consciously or subconsciously-- are joining the emerging paradigm of unity without borders. There are many brains but there is only one heart.
     
    I believe that Thoreau and Gandhi --and so many other great human beings-- are showing us the path towards a way of life where we treat each other as sisters and brothers for real. We always will have enough for everybody's needs but not for anyone's greed. It is a visualization of how the Earth Community would look like if we embrace the Victory of the Commons, the Victory of the Grand Human Family.
     
    3. Radical Hospitality
    Ancient law of hospitality... what about 9 months of radical hospitality in our mom's womb? 
     
    Or what about 13 years of opening the door of your home and cooking dinner with love every single Wednesday where everybody is welcome, so long as the meditative purpose of the silent space, the constraints of the physical space, and a sense of mutual respect is honored?
     
    Or what about 3.5 billion years of radical hospitality of Mother Earth who supports the miracle of life in this part of the Universe?
     
    Father Thomas Berry puts it beautifully:
     
    "Every part of the Earth is a mode of the Earth.
    Every being on the Earth, is the Earth.
    A tiger is the Earth. A thunderstorm is the Earth. A poem is the Earth.
    The Earth expresses herself through the myriad beings. The Planet is embodied in every one of its phenomena."
     
    In the same way that we (radically) host in our hearts every single being of the Earth, every phenomena, we will feel the flow of the Universal Love nourishing the soul at all levels confirming that there is no community without a unifying story.
     
    May all become compassionate, courageous and wise.

    Pancho 

     


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