THE PROFOUND CONSCIOUSNESS HAPPENING

The most accessible indicator of the happening of profound consciousness is the style of life that is effective. A vision (profound consciousness) first appears to the pre­consciousness or to the intuition; it then embodies itself in the personal and social style of a people, and finally discloses itself to the reflective self­consciousness.

Its appearance on the first level occasions the Dark Night of the Soul to societies and to men. At that level, profound consciousness is an alien image. When the vision occurs, it comes not as a welcome solution to old problems, but as a total re­definition of what constitutes both problem and solution. Society undergoes disruption and ferment as unrecognized and unfamiliar forces come into play. Old formulas no longer work. Old structures fall apart. Old values cease to motivate, and established roles fall into dis­use. It is a time of humiliation, resentment, weakness and suffering on a sociological level that later and also becomes the interior experience of persons. But mostly, it is a time of the new consciousness purging society of its presuppositions thereby making it ready for reconstruction.

The second phase of the happening of profound consciousness is manifest as the Long March of Care. It is a time of action, serious pioneering social demonstration that has as its aim nothing less than the total reconstructing of human community in accordance with the new vision. But the moral imperative of liberalism are gone. The new vision may be but dimly perceived, but that is clear enough to insure that its active embodiment is indicative. Mostly visibly, the STYLE of life undergoes a subtle alteration. Care and corporateness become presuppositions for every action. Mankind senses itself launched on a common journey whose goal is unclear, whose directions are manifold and whose forms are strange. The heroic paradigm is no longer the elder preserving the ancient heritage or the adventurer risking exploration of the unknown. The hero is the manager who effectively organizes a force and orchestrates the implementation of complicated tasks. The recruitment of the force and the definition of the task are not issues but presuppositions. The new consciousness, while still undefined, has provided a common context, an unrecognized paradigm of reality that releases passion for active engagement in society. Phenomenologically, it is a time of rootlessness, ineffectivity, weariness and unfulfillment. But mostly, it is a time of the new consciousness taking social form in a long process whose first visible imprint is in the style with which passion is enacted. It is a style responding to an altered reality. But the style may not be noticed for it is not the radical departure from family norms like fads which only entrench old forms by their exaggerated rejection or intensification of them. The new style that emerges is a translucent window into the new consciousness. It is style of care, power and peace all with a heretofore unknown inclusiveness.

Only in the third phase is the consciousness itself disclosed. It comes as the appearance of hope - not hope for anything for every THING has been exposed in its radical contingency. Despite this exposure, there is a drive, an enervation and a courage that is not simply a response to impending catastrophe. This is a time of intensified being, of presence, joy and vocation. Society knows its forms and functions in their profundity and practicality. The drive for their actualization sustains one in confusion, expenditure and frustration. And most significantly the CONTENT of the vision begins to take shape. Artists, musicians, poets and authors point to it. Social forms reflect it. And sooner or later, it discloses itself to a discerning spirit who gives it expression and who more often than not is flabbergasted at the reception given to "his" insight. Of course it has not belonged to him. Ever. The vision, as if on a journey of its own, has moved softly through the human consciousness leaving only unobtrusive imprints here and there. But when it is expressed, it is recognized as the operative paradigm of reality at last become visible.

Still, WHAT is disclosed is not quite content and certainly not information. It is fundamentally SIGNIFICATION. The profundity of life appears as attached to heretofore insignificant segments of reality. And that signification has no imperatives whatsoever; furthermore, it is neither caused by nor does it cause anything. It just is, a presence closer that the air simply sitting there to be noticed or ignored. And the appearance of this consciousness, while doing and causing absolutely nothing, is yet the basis for every social transformation that has ever occurred.

(untitled prayer)

Oh Happening of Profound Consciousness,

Consciousness of the One Reality

Indwelling in human bodies and selfhood:

Have mercy upon me.

Sustain me in spite of my estrangement from Thee.

Heal me of my estrangement toward Thee.

Commission me to authentic living before Thee.

The Lord's Prayer

Oh Mystery beyond all experience,

AWE unending is the expression of Thy Presence'

May faith, Hope and Love be manifest

through the building of a New Earth,

Even as these states of being reveal themselves now

in the fresh dawning of profound consciousness in our lives.

Grant us this day our enabling resources

And assure us of our eternal significance

in spite of all our estrangement from it.

Even as we assure others of their eternal significance

in the very midst of their estrangement from us.

And lead us not into strain so great that Illusion conquers us.

But have mercy upon us that we may

maintain the vision of profound consciousness

and creatively perform it

in the midst of all adversity.

So be it.

ON FOUNDATIONAL THEOLOGICAL MYTHS

Texts "God's favor is upon his creation

But God's wrath is upon the fallen world."

The "Creation" is a mythological expression for the essential. It is the way life truly is for every human consciousness beneath all the sham, illusion, and lies that consciousness has invented to escape from the essence of finite conscious existing.

God's favor is upon the creation. The Mystery always addresses the creation with "Thou art my creation with whom I am well pleased." The very essence of life is mundanity in which the Mystery is "pleased" to "dwell" and "speak", God's favor is this presence is AWE in the midst of mundanity. God's favor is not necessarily what man wants. Creation, including the Awe, is seldom what man wants. The creation is struggle, pain, death, change, concern, responsibility, obligation, and thousands of other such realities. All these realities, plus butterflies and babies, are filled with Awe; or they are fallen out of Awe into mundanity without mystery, which is o world of unreality in which lying consciousness dwells. Mystery favors the reel with its own presence as Awe. The Awe-filled mundanity is authenticity.

But God's wrath is upon the fallen world. Awe-filled mundanity can be said to be dependent upon the mystery for its very existence, both its mundanity and its Awe-filledness. The fallen world is also dependent upon the mystery, but its fallenness is precisely the loss of consciousness of that enduring fact. Therefore it experiences any approach of the mystery as wrath. Wrath is the very objective action of the mystery upon fallen existence.

The creation is often experienced by mankind is rare end unusual (even unreal and mystical) because each man lives most of his life in the "fallen world". The fallen world is the creation without Awe, without on immediate relation to the mystery. The fallen world is the creation without the creator. The fallen world is an illusion. It is unreal because the real is in relation to Mystery: the real Is Awe-full. In truth, the real world has not fallen; only consciousness has fallen. But consciousness is part of creation, the only part of creation that can fall so when the fell has happened, the creation has fallen. Man in his fullness is identified with the whole creation. Men is creation -- creation is men. He is creation's consciousness of itself and of its relation to the mystery, the creator of creation. So when man falls from the Awe-filled mundanity of real essential existing into mundanity without owe end mystery, the creation as a whole has fallen.

Mystery and world are bound together. This is the essence. This is the creation. The same awe that comes as favor to the creation, comes as wrath to the fallen world. The creation experiences no wrath. The fallen world experiences no favor. The fallen world might be said to experience the mercy of being sustained in order to experience the wrath. But fallen consciousness experiences only wrath until the day that it sees the fact that it is fallen and that it has been under wrath only because of its fell. That happening might be celled Judgment. Judgment is a favor of God. Judgment is the mercy of action upon fallen consciousness that restores it to the Awe~filled creation. Judgment is that activity of God we also call grace. Grace is more adequately described as a three part happening including judgment. Grace is also the dawning of the possibility to live in the Awe-filled creation which Judgment revealed. And thirdly, grace is the appearance of freedom in men to reach out and receive the possibility of authentic living - the living upon which God's favor rests.

The Whole Myth. God, his favor and wrath, his mercy as sustenance, judgment, and grace, is the main Actor in this great cosmic myth. The fallen world also has an active part in the myth. The fallen world does not take this defeat by Cod easily. In fact, even when beaten in the lives of these particular men (or in this sort of one man's life), the fallen world sneaks UD to Awe-filled consciousness and tempts it to fall back again into some new appealing lie. The creation experiences itself under trial at many points of severe temptation. The favor of God grows dim. The wrath of God on the fallen world is forgotten. The picture of a world without this particular mundanity or that particular Awe grows strong in power. And then it is as if the Awe-filled creation is gone and m altogether more pleasant world has finally arrived. But it is a lie. And Mystery walks through the locale where Lie reigns and calls out "where are you?". The fallen world provides whatever excuses it can, but finally it experiences again its absolute humiliation. The creation cheers and rejoices in its confidence that abiding favor is bestowed upon the creation from Him who always wins.

The Work of the Church. All God's activity is love for consciousness - creating it, sustaining it, restoring it. The work of the Church is to work with God. The myth of God's great war on fallen consciousness is a practical guide to those who deem themselves God's servants. God's servants do what God is doing. They follow his lead and lend him their minds, bodies, and spirits. They become warriors in the great war on fallen consciousness. They fight the war where war is in fact already going on in their hour of living. They judge fallen consciousness, they rejoice in the rebirth of awe, they beckon all men to live in authenticity.

John Epps