Russ Campbell's song on the solitaries has been a great tool in holding the categories. And then of course, there is the far more important category of holding the participation. If I hum that tune a little bit, something seems to happen to me. This points to what music is, relative to contemplation.

There have to be three things to do the kind of job a chart ought to do. There has to be a key word to hold in your mind as you move, and explodes the universe at the same time. Then there must be two or three words which point to what is happening inside one's self. To illustrate: for me the categories across the top are,. mediator, prior, saint, and colleague O It has to be understood that the word "my" precedes each of them. Above My Mediator, the category for me is "Personal Absolution". I'm talking about the communion of saints, or the interiorization of community. It has always meant to be nothing but your common being in community. Above "Prior" is interior accountability. Meditation is interior accountability. It is personal absolution, not in regard to action, but about 'fellowship', about what does not exist in relations. You are talking about what appears to be living out of your own interior resources; but, of course, that' s a lie. You are living out of the resources o~ a community that is within you, Your 1neditation, you and I we never want. I want 'existential guidance ' above "saint." You could also use 'spiritual guidance.' But none of these folk ever tell you that ­­ "E" ='s Mc2; unless the formula has to do with your deepest existential dimension. They may tell you that "E" ='s Mc2, but it has nothing to do with your posture or stance in life.

In the last box, over lay colleague, I have 'missional comradeship'. This has to do with standing in the desert with a task. I'd suggest that the movement across the chart is exactly what the experience of standing as a man of faith is about. There is also nurture. You are not interested in anything but delivering a man to be iron in the front ranks. There is tremendous emotion and sentiment, not sentimentality, but deep sentiment. You know of love here, affectional love, that is almost beyond description. This experience seems as though it ought to be prior, but not the ones of the community who are always there whispering that you "are received" are always the ones who are there to hold you accountable or their understanding and their doing. But we are always there guiding that understanding and that doing. Then and this is almost the most crucial thing, that never have they been there with you, standing on that front line. This is where the discontinuity in this whole thing happens. It is as if they are behind you, but when you get to the lines, it is not you standing there at all, but this host. let's move on, and see if we cannot talk about it further on.

My PRIEST­­ Here is the intrusion of the Word. This is the Jesus experience or the impingement. Maybe you even thought to put it "my Jesus,"

My GURU: the Guru its addressing the particular. He is the one who always deals with the concretion, and always deals with that. The Guru is always privy to your inner being and to mine like no external human being can be.

My FRIEND: I mean you begin to become colleague or to find yourself in a college of Gurus, the dialog is back and forth.

the ETERNAL SAVIOR: I use this symbolic word here. This is where the eschatological hero intrudes, but ad not think for a moment that there is such a thing as an eschatological hero, save he's at the front of the league. You do not have one without the other. In terms of theologizing of the past, the Christ and the Church cannot be separated at all. In terms of accountability, I want to . . .

the INTERIOR ACCOUNTABILITY: my prompter. You have built in prompters.

my JUDGE I'm not sure of this, I've fooled back and forth with it.

my FATHER This is the third one. I used to reverse prompter and father and by father I mean "father image". There are examples of people who are afraid of a Father image, but you and I had better stop being afraid of it. Without it, none of us can exist, ever. The way to handle that? Some of you have spent hair your life and wasting all your energies fighting a ether image. Every one or us has it. You receive that as a fantastic gift in life. This father damn well tells you what you have to do. If you don't believe it, then keep out of meditations.

The judge is the same kind of thing as the prompter, but it is still an externality. I mean they judge you. Don't you react Luther if you don't want the guts judged out of you. Don't fool around with Thomas if you don't want a judge in your life. You are almost sorry those medieval images are gone. The devil really takes shape. He pushed you quite literally" That's what you are fooling with in this kind of an area.

The HEAVENLY ADVOCATE This is the discontinuity in this column. You remember the punitive theory of the atonement, where the son is both the defense lawyer and the judge himself. That's fantastic imagery. You know that in the courts of the dimension of the spirit being you have witnesses to your character. It is judged not by your character itself, but only by the Word in Jesus Christ itself. The whole hosts of heaven are in that O

My HERO: I think that this is a good way to state it. This is the cultural hero. This is the area of imitation, as you can understand.

My AVATOR: I'll keep this still. Avatar means just the Hero with divine qualities. When you use that, it's like you are going to be more objective, but that is not what I am after. You are going to be more concrete. The one become s the divine hero exactly when the most particular or your life is coughed up and has to be altered, by imitating the hero.

My BROTHER: I think that you and I have to learn afresh of what it means even for us to play that role on that black board. You have to allow yourself to become this. There is that moment when the Avatar becomes the brother" I can remember when someone who was this to me, gave me permission to call him by his first name. It was like calling God Henry. I've never been the same since. That's only indirectly what I am after.

GUARDIAN ANGEL: Socrates called this one the Daemon. You remember he was a soldier, a bad one, out on watch one night, all alone, out under the stars. His 'angel' or his 'demon', which was always for him his 'good' came and spoke to him. That was his conversion. He became a philosopher after that. The R.C.s in our midst, ought to be scintillated here. Where before they needed to be criticized, because they lost the understanding of what this was before the actualities or life. They would not take it out of another world view. But we can see the power that was there.

My COLLEAGUE: "my elector". The word bothers me, but this is the one who will not let me go. He will not finally allow me to slob into a heap. He has always elected me afresh.

my ANCESTOR: I've decided this word is probably good. I mean the awareness that the job of standing in the past, which the host of witnesses did, is actually my doing. If you and I would die tomorrow, you couldn't even dream of any more being accomplished with everything that Gautama did, everything that Amos did, everything that Socrates did, I did. Their accomplishments are mine. That's what they constantly remind me of. Then ­

my DESCENDENTS: I am doing their doing. Amos is utterly dependent upon me. His word wai1the worst thing ever done, if Mathews doesn't stand. Every bit of' the Leagues work is dependent upon whether you and I stand.

I am not only dependent upon Luther, Luther is dependent upon me. I am his job, but Luther is also my child. One side of this is that I am utterly dependent upon Amos, and he is my Spirit ancestor. But that has ­to be turned around so that he is utterly dependent upon me.

the DIVNE HOSTS: I'm not sure what should go here. This is simply the intensification of the column above. I kind of think that here, reading the League that was the judgement, the court scene, the trial scene in Journey to the East, now you are part of the Heavenly Hosts. To get poetry on that, I was there singing with the angels who announced to the shepherds the birth of the Lord. You have made the whole march with the League from beginning to end. You almost feel psychotic here. I don't want this to get mixed up with a reductionistic understanding of life after death, which was in liberal theology, that you 1ive forever out of your influence. It is not because your good deeds keep going in history. No. But this is eternal life in that I shall always be there in the League, to the end of time. How this it seems to me, is what meditation or sociality at the raw edge of the intensified, means.

ENIGMATIC OTHER THAN-NESS ( not­me-ness)

I can simply put in the code word, the 'other'. Then I moved the 'self' over to the last box, and I suspect that is where the experience comes although rationally, you could relate them in terms of space and time.

the PAST: This is archaism. This fearful "never­again-ness". There is not awe, so that kind of word gimmick is better, in the concept or the past. The awe comes in this kind of awareness. Then the future is 'awesome' "not­yet­ness". Again, what you mean by those awkward words, it isn't everybody who grasps what you are trying to with the verbal sign "future", as the not­yet­ness. It is only when you experience destiny moving in.

the INTRUSIOIN: You and I know what this means. "When in the midst of life, the other strikes my life." Those of you who, like myself, tend to slip again and again into some kind of personal relations, a No must be said to us. This intrusion means the other is always a "son of a bitch". If he isn't, you haven't got this intrusion. I'm talking not only about people, but about leaves on a tree. Do you remember the training ride through the flat nothing, then a little pond and a big tree out there? I wasn't but sixteen years old. That dead tree was a son of a bitch standing there. That's what I mean by intrusion. I am 57, and that darn tree, I still cannot get away from it. I've done nothing for 10 years but try to get away from it. You have to have harsh language here. You have to see in this the hound of heaven where you have to get away or be utterly destroyed. But you just get away. One day, maybe some of those who have left our midst will have to come back and make a testimony in this dimension.

the ACKNOWLEDGEMENT: Richard Niebuhr liked that word. This word is honor, and you honor that tree I was discussing. It has to include "foe or friend".

The OTHER MAN: here you become the "other man," The "all that is not me," as the song goes.

The FATE: Go back and reach Tillich on that. This is the horrifying awareness, After the war, it was the Jewish boys coming back who understood more than the rest of us, what the war had jarred in our heads for what was maybe the first time in our lives. Those people dealt with this, the givenness of my past; then …

the TRANSFORMATION: what this is, when you discover this is do you have memory? The "what it is" is that only when you discover this do you have a past, do you have a memory. But the moment you discover it, that memory you have but never had, or that past that you always had but never had, is radically transfigured. It is re­created. That is a painful experience. You see, my illustrations are sometimes horribly corny. You remember the one I use sometimes, about my father beating the daylights out of me for not shelling peas as fast as my younger brother. Well the pain of having to appropriate ­­ well!­­ you see those psychologists want you to get rid of these. But a spirit man finds them transformed into the creative moments of his life. Some of you younger squirts still fighting your parents, why don't you understand - fate! Then that mean old bastard who sired you and beat the hell out of you for not shelling peas as fast as your younger brother - or the equivalent thereof ­ that moment becomes the grace of God. It doesn't relieve you from your neuroses. You're not interested in that, but only in the transfiguration of your neuroses.

the CREATIVITY: this is what releases your creativity, this transformation. Only in the midst of that do you become creative. Don't you know I could never have been remotely, a mora1 man if Papa hadn't beat the daylights out of me for that? That's what releases the demand and the capacity to create in every situation for you. Never again would you be caught beating the daylights out of your children for that.

BECOME THE ALL OF HISTORY: I think it's crucial that you see that it is not Adam and all of history. Don't you see that that's saying the same thing? It means the Adam in all history.

the FUTURE: ' the cut­off­ness'­­ All I can come up with here is that term. You do not know you have a future until your future is cut off.. For instance, a mother's baby dies. She thinks that the sorrow is that the baby is dead. But no, it's because the future is cut off. Her plans and dreams are cut off. She never had a future until her future was cut off. Sometimes you and I say that if we were God, we would not have brought tragedy into this world. But you take this kind of tragedy if you take it out or the world, you romantic ones, and me, the leader of all romantics ­­ I don't like to suffer, because I'm a constitutional coward.

the POSSIBILITY: there has to be a little better rubric here, but this means you have to live within the rubric or change. You live open to the future, which means you live open to the rubric of change, or within it.

the CHANGE: my reality is change itself.

ALL THAT'S YET TO BE: only here do you begin to see the fantastic wonder. It has nothing to do with God accepting you. It's just the stark naked wonder of yourself. You have to keep the word Mystery up there. The wonder of yourself.

the DREADFULL­IN­MYSELF­NESS, the thereness of Myself. the UNIQUENESS.

THE PASSION

BECOME BEING IN MYSELF: I just wonder if we get the full impact in that? Lo and behold I am being in myself. Then you can almost understand how that if you ever dare to have one self­depreciating thought about yourself, you have no right to live, But you would be such a slob as to not be filled with wonder at being in myse1f. I wish a psychiatrist friend of Mine were here

I was thinking overnight and I think it needs to be called to our attention that one needs gimmicks when working in this area to hold yourself in check and that means you keep this universal, objective, you keep it out of your own being and yet you cannot do your being. And it's these and 9 x 13 and on and on and on till you have 13 of these abstract categories, it's this that keeps your analysis from being personal while it's got to be reelingly personal, keeping abstract in the sense of human, and don't forget that that's why you've got to have so many of these, and these as you move, these master categories, they will remain relatively mixed.

now­­ the PRAYERS.

those are all Confession, Gratitude, Petition, Intercession, with which we are all familiar. You see how the dynamic runs in all four directions.

the CONFESSION:­ I use here perpetual repentance. Those of you who know Luther know that this was one of his crucial categories. The man of the Spirit lives in perpetual repentance.

the GRATITUDE: I want to call this situational affirmation. You can find a better term than that.

the PETITION: I would use the term "unlimited inadequacy". You remember that category is used elsewhere in the chart, Obviously, here, you are going to be dealing with the intensification or everything else.

the INTERCESSION: I would use "universal responsibility" here. This is the experience we struggle after

the ACKNOWLEDGEMENT: Remember this is always the general. I want a different word than acknowledgment because we have used it elsewhere. Here, on this level, just for the purposes of a thoroughly consistent model, that these be 144 different words, you understand. It has to be that way if you are going to brainwash yourself and anybody else who touches it. Now this category has to do with human illusion, If the idea 'intrudes' you will see that you are sinful. That's the way it always was, the way it always will be, and nothing can ever be done about it" From that moment on, you are never the same human being.

the PARTICULARISATION: this also needs a better word. I want to put personal violation here. I don't need to rehearse stories of where this awareness or human illusion gets concrete,

the BESETTINGNESS: This basically has to do with our neuroses. The way we would talk about it today is that we have just built into ourselves the posture of defiance. Or, maybe it means a posture of just walking with great boots over anybody who gets in our way, for some. Or it has to do with the posture of living your life pulled back from the table, This is all highly personal. The reason­­ you have this prayer is not merely to get rid of this. It is that you have to embrace it as a gift. Then you'll discover that you got rid of it, but, of course you did not get rid or it. The problem of besetting sins is not getting rid of them. It is coming to terms with the fact that I am this crudy person.

the HEAVNELY SORROW: these are the tears over the sins of the whole world which you now pick up. Your life is tragic from then on. It's filled with sorrow. It's the way of sorrow. You think of those people who say "why aren't you happy?" How are you supposed to answer that sort of crap.

the EMBRACEMENT: this means obviously, that once you have come to terms with your illusion, you live your situation. You embrace that as good. This is "all that is is good"

the SPLENDID VICES: what I'm pointing to here, really, is the cultural goods. Augustine was much better when he called them "splendid vices " It's like we have peace with the world, Well, for us bourgeoisie, who are sitting on top this is a great good, Yet you embrace these. Our country is a great country ­ sure it is. You thank God for that. I mean you embrace the glory of your own country in the midst of all its splendor and perversion.

COUNT YOUR BLESSINGS: this is just "count your blessings, count them one by one." You be thankful. You be grateful that today you have health. You are grateful today in the midst of what you know.

the UNSPEAKABLE JOY: this is the joy where there is no joy. You embrace the whole world in this prayer.

the PETITION: this is the awareness of the utter helplessness of mankind, as a whole. Petitionary prayer has been hard for us, for we live in a time where you have to create the future" The one thing that a man who is going to create the future knows above all else, is that he's not going to create any future. If you don't know that about yourself, you are in a dream. But you had better create the future. This is the helplessness, or the utter dependence of man.

the IDENTIFICATION: again, this identification with the culture, the particular. Again I have to say that this man who prays for the Pentecostals in South America, who is nor utterly identified with all of their horrors and helplessness, does not know what his prayer is all about.

the SUCCOUR: this is just for my own particular needs. How do you pray for help at the point of inertia? When you pray here, you never start out by saying "this is a nasty old thing in me "O no. It's, Lord I need your help, in the midst of this situation. This is concrete, in the midst o r your personal existence. When one is mean to his or her mate, you know what you have to pray for. At this level, its likely to get you down on your knees.

the LEVITATION: levitatio;1 is helplessness Sometimes maybe, we are inclined to think that Jesus had his own generator in himself. Oh, no. But remember, his last prayer was something like, "O Lord, "how in the hell am I going to get out of this?. The only reason why one or us has not yet levitated is that there has not yet been that kind of desperateness that breeds the humility that is able to confess that desperateness. Boy! on the day when one does levitate, we won't be interested in that, we'll have our minds focused on the kind of trappedness he got into, and wondered what was what. He'll maybe think he's smart, floating around the room, but we won't be interested in that

the PRAYER OF OBLIGATION: we used to call this "attentional prayer" No words seem strong enough to get at this. It is just the awareness that every problem in the world is yours. Schweitzer's romanticism when he went back to Africa because of what white man had done to the Blackman, this is the beginning of it all. This horrible America we live in, is still mouthing "we've got to start at home". But this doesn't work when you are acknowledging utter responsibility.

the INSPIRATIONAL PRAYERS: these are the particular prayers, This is what I mean, for myself, when I ask where does the Holy Spirit lead you to pray this day? I always weave back and forth here. God, in the NT, says he gives certain people the gift of prayer. I'm sure of this, and I have a couple in min in our group, whom I really think have the gift of prayer. It's taken a long time to believe this, because of the oral diarrhea sometimes manifested. Anyway, God seems to put something into your heart, something on your heart.

the PRAYER OF AGONY: I sometimes call this also, the modalistic prayer. This is where you tell the Lord how it's going to be. This is where you get out your four point program.

the PROMISORIAL PRAYER: We've been over this. It is utter care, utter death, utter nothing, utter vocation. Here is where you lay down your life. This is where you face utter non­being. This is your utter vocation .which becomes utter love and utter care. Jesus says: here you lay down your life.

We cannot go over the formal and the phenomenological too often. Let's begin with the formal category. It would seem to me that the way you arrive at those is through the rational structures that 'nave come to you from the past. This is going to come even clearer when we come to the corporates" and see that in the area of detachment: or the economic aspect on life, that you are dealing with possessions and with work and with distribution or relationships. Now our society is such that you cannot read a book on ethics in this area, that does not deal with property; and I suspect from the very dawn or history, and even Marx wou1d underline this because history did not exist until there was private property. That was also the great sin, but that was it. Then with work, and then how in the hell do you distribute the goods. So with all of these. Some of these are much more difficult, but they are difficult because you and I are fairly highly educated through our educational systems in the area of economics. But this area of life has, for one hundred years, been left out of our education entirely. As a matter of fact, we can bear witness to that it's only been within the last year that we'd be willing to be caught reading Theresa. And isn't that part of the wisdom of humanity? You bet it is. Because of the educational system, most of us are unlearned in philosophy. We see it as abstract, rather than this. Now, the key -- well I would want to insist that any kind of communal experience in terms or just raw data in sociality has to do with nurturing one another, with accounting to and for one another, and with mutual imitation. You just think of your little babies. All they do is imitate. It has to do with mission.

Something is happening to me here. To see a 40­yr old person still fighting with his father and expending this fantastic God­given energy. That's a misplaced arena of struggle. To think that you let al1 that tremendous wonder you are go down the drain in some silly hostility, all of which is a great gift, rather than a mean old demon. Your Poppa had better be a gift to you, because he's always going to be your Poppa, and you see, that was built into history

And so, if this isn't the way a man has always experienced his awe, as man has brought his wisdom to try and analyze this, then we're wrong. So that the formal categories are almost like stored up self­hood and these categories are stored up phenomenological experience. By sharing in this, I am sharing in the lives of billions of people, To go back and study Plato or Aristotle now, or these so-called rationalists would be fantastic.

Now, you know how the great evolutionary theory was, that each individual reproduces the history of the race. They even analyzed pre­birth in pregnancy with the idea that we are going through the history of the race there. Well, in one way you see, here is our own personal experience in the stored up wisdom. Both of these are just utterly necessary. This is the journey whereby you participate in the history of the human race. I follow Kierkegaard.

Joseph W. Mathews