Cynthia’s Latest Articles and Blog

This piece by Cynthia Bourgeault is the seventh in a series beginning with “A Surprising Ecumenism,” her response to “Evangelical Fundamentalism and Catholic Integralism in the USA: A Surprising Ecumenism,” an article published by La Civiltà Cattolica. The second is “Abortion, Pro-Life, and the Secular State: A Modest Proposal,” the third is “When Does Life Begin?,”  the fourth is “The Developmental Soul,” the fifth is “Teilhard, the Personal, and the Developmental Soul,” and the sixth is “Fullness of Life.“

As we come down the home stretch in this extended Wisdom inquiry into the abortion issue, I’ve tried to draw together here some of the most important implications and “business arising” out this exploration. Most of my following “top five” have already been touched on in previous blogs, but a few are new (though obviously following from points already raised). Here we go:

The whole conversation around the abortion issue needs to begin with a comprehensive reframing of the metaphysical assumptions on which it rests: away from a substance-theology-driven fixation on nailing down the precise moment when. . .

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This piece by Cynthia Bourgeault is the sixth in a series beginning with “A Surprising Ecumenism,” her response to “Evangelical Fundamentalism and Catholic Integralism in the USA: A Surprising Ecumenism.” an article published by La Civiltà Cattolica. The second is “Abortion, Pro-Life, and the Secular State: A Modest Proposal,” the third is “When Does Life Begin?,”  the fourth is “The Developmental Soul,” and the fifth is “Teilhard, the Personal, and the Developmental Soul.“

A brief poetic interlude before the final run-up on a conclusion.

The clear, simple truth: nothing can fall out of God. Where would it go?

God is not somebody (not me)—somewhere else (not here). God is the all, the now, the whole; the undivided, dynamic totality of form and formlessness. As Barbara Brown Taylor pictures it so vibrantly in The Luminous Web (p. 74):

Where is God in this picture? God is all over the place. God is up there, down here, inside my skin and out. God is the web, the energy, the space, the light—not captured in them, as if any of those concepts were more real than. . .

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This piece by Cynthia Bourgeault is the fifth in a series beginning with “A Surprising Ecumenism,” her response to “Evangelical Fundamentalism and Catholic Integralism in the USA: A Surprising Ecumenism,” an article published by La Civiltà Cattolica. The second is “Abortion, Pro-Life, and the Secular State: A Modest Proposal,” the third is “When Does Life Begin?,” and the fourth is “The Developmental Soul.“

But what about Psalm 139?

The biggest challenge in wrapping one’s head around this Wisdom notion of a developmental soul—at least for traditionally reared religious folks —is that it seems to fly in the face of that well-loved Biblical assurance that God is personally and intimately invested in the creation of each and every human being, “For you yourself created my inmost parts; you knit me together in my mother’s womb,” the Psalm’s text assures. In the face of this apparently explicit assurance that each human soul originates in God and reflects God’s personal handiwork, the alternative version—that developing a soul is the principal business of this life and that not all human lives will get there—seems bleak and impersonal. What could possibly. . .

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This piece by Cynthia Bourgeault is the fourth in a series beginning with “A Surprising Ecumenism,” her response to “Evangelical Fundamentalism and Catholic Integralism in the USA: A Surprising Ecumenism,” an article published by La Civiltà Cattolica. The second is “Abortion, Pro-Life, and the Secular State: A Modest Proposal,” and the third is “When Does Life Begin?“

According to Gurdjieff, the mysterious “X-factor” that enters in the moment of conception is not yet soul but essence. Think of it as the hand of cards you’re dealt at the start of a card game. It comprises a set of unique characteristics including race, gender (and most likely gender orientation), basic body type and other genetic factors, influences emerging from more distant ancestry and bloodline—and yes, that unquantifiable legacy “from the stars”—all combined primarily according to what Teilhard would call “tatonnement” (“trial and error”): evolution’s predilection for trying out any and all possibilities. Cumulatively, all of the above will combine to confer on you what is commonly known as your “nature.”

Notice how there is no need to stipulate an “artist” God here, specifically designing a unique human. . .

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In this third installment of what now looks to be shaping up as five-part series, I hope to bring a Wisdom perspective to that profound liminal sphere encompassing conception, birth, and the formation of the soul; for it’s in the metaphysical confusion surrounding these mysteries, I believe, that the roots of our present abortion conundrum really have their origin.

Note: I say “a Wisdom perspective,” rather than “the Wisdom perspective,” for the Wisdom tradition is by no means monochrome. My comments here reflect the strands of the lineage that have most directly informed my own understanding; specifically, the Gurdjieff Work and the Christian mystical/esoteric lineage running through the Gospel of Thomas, the Philokalia, Jacob Boehme, and Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. They also reflect some of the thinking at the forefront of contemporary embryology, particularly as represented in the work. . .

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