Daily Signet

“In the beginning was the Word.” In the beginning, God created a living dictionary, a universe alphabetized along lines of chemical bonds and DNA codes—the word being made galaxies and black holes and stars and rock and gases and liquids and somehow, miraculously, flesh among and in us. To create anew, our challenge is to take the words from our believing, and plant them within the heart of our beloving. This pure and most potent encapsulation challenges us to trace our own original logos to its source, the etymology of the origo, to clean out the cant not only of our minds, but of our hearts as well. This requires more than merely polish our theological entries; it requires going beyond a mental understanding of the words; we must make the words flesh. We must become “gospel”, become “baptism”, become “apocatastasis” and even “apophatic”. We must become living dictionaries of the Word—unique yet universal, individually origo, universally logos. 

Teri Martin

Daily Signet

I sit in awe as I realize that Christuman has created a 3-dimensional place for which we can give birth to the best of us, that which is truly Human. Christuman has provided us with a scaffolding with which we can make essential bonds with all that Eternal and all that is Universal. Christuman allows us to be open to the Holy Spirit each in our own manner—not through dogmatic statements that create boundaries, but by asking us to read and learn and keep an open mind, to be able to make receptive relationships. Finally, it gives us the greatest freedom to create structures with all of these elements. Not lifeless solid objects that are dead on the table, but living energetic expressions of these inner, eternal truths. I am continually amazed by discoveries being made in the nano world as well as the cosmos; human beings are amazing. But these discoveries pale in comparison to this spiritual rediscovery in Christuman—the potential that it creates and releases is limitless. Just by being here in this moment, just by looking, you add your energy, your structure, your unique creativity.                     

Alexis Drabek

Daily Signet

The eternal creative force can only exist by the perpetual imaginative motion of paradox. Our physical eyes cannot hold the two pictures at once—the box either comes out from the page toward us or recedes into the page away from us. We are either in the white of the yang or the black of the yin. Only in the imagination, only with the eyes of the soul, can one steady one’s self in the space between. Logic takes us to the certain, sure and measurable edges of our thinking, but only imagination, only art, only ritual, only prayerful contemplation can hold us in the center, in the space between our thoughts. In the world, we must choose one picture at a time—we must choose an edge. The successful, who may even gain the whole world, can move with agility back and forth. But the soul can only be visited, cared for and restored in the space between.

From the imaginal space between comes the sacred, comes grace. It is the place where Christs are born and Virgins are made once again virginal, where creativity is made eternal. Universal restoration is not something that will happen at the end of time, but is something that happens each time one holds oneself in the middle of paradox and restores the soul.                                                                  

Teri Martin

On This Day…

Khordad Sal: Jain remembrance of Prophet Zaranthushtra

Tennessee Williams born 1911 in Columbus, Mississippi, died 1983: playwright
Works: Cat On A Hot Tin Roof, A Streetcar Named Desire
Quotes: “When so many are lonely as seem to be lonely, it would be inexcusably selfish to be lonely alone.” “There is a time for departure even when there’s no certain place to go.” “In memory, everything seems to happen to music.”

Robert Frost born 1874 in San Francisco, died 1963: poet
Works: Home Burial, The Runaway, The Road Not Taken
Quotes: “In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life; it goes on.” “The best way out is always through.” “Love is an irresistible desire to be irresistibly desired.”

Daily Signet

We look for direct access to the imagination—the star in us—the mercurial element of transformation and creation. Can we take on more than we want to be, to be what we need to be, to be what we are asked to be? We reach in for that star and look to transform, that the inner can shine outer and that what is outer is true to the inner. That in the masking and unmasking, we will learn grace and fidelity and sophia. It is more than enough to be so loved, so blessing drenched.  

Might our jobs, our work, our calling be our crucible, and what we pour into it, our mater? And out of this alchemy, a new human who is the human we have always been but could not be because we were always in the way?  

O Holy Spirit, in our giving up and giving in, may our submission lead to the star in us—the imaginatio of our mater. Amen.

Benjamin Martin

On This Day…

Annunciation, work by unknown artist, c. 1420, Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya, Barcelona

Catholic Christian Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary: Mary was visited by the Archangel Gabriel who told her of the coming of the Christ Child

Daily Signet

The old of us must die in order for the new to be born. What can be birthed, created when the least of us dies, is the best of us. We have the opportunity to create ourselves in the image of the future us to which we aspire; the image of our own Origo to which we aspire. That new us to which we aspire becomes our sun – around which we revolve – the sun whose gravitational force draws us closer and closer while warming and renewing us – day after day after day. One of the meanings of the Greek word “Kosmos” was embroidery. Was Odysseus’ stalwart Penelope creative – weaving during the day and then ripping it out at night to begin a new pattern the next day – so day follows night follows day? We each, individually, with our unique Human Souls, at night ripping apart yesterday’s pattern and each day having the opportunity to weave a new pattern. Giving birth to the new us. What could be more creative than that?                                                                        

Ben Leichtling 

On This Day…

St. Gabriel, Archangel

St. Oscar Romero: Archbishop of war-torn San Salvador who was murdered while saying mass in his church, 1980