The Heart of Matter: The Key to Evolution is Openness to the Environment.

Welcome to The Heart of Matter, a new contemplative email series from the Center for Christogenesis. Our invitation to you is to read those passages every day to give them time to expand and use an incarnational practice to deepen their understanding.

Knowledge without practice can remain “heady” and far from becoming transformative. The practices introduced here can also be used to read Scriptures, poetry, even secular texts as a way to counterbalance our propensity to read quickly and remain at the surface of things.

Become a seer. “The seer sees something that does not yet exist; knows something is seeking to exist; and acts to making something exist in a new way.” says Ilia Delio.
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Tuesday, January 11th 2022

“The key to evolution is openness to the environment. Open systems can be influenced by the environment and change in relation to the environment. Closed systems cannot evolve, because they cannot be influenced by the environment; thus they seek to preserve their resources within.” —Ilia Delio, The Emergent Christ

In Spanish:
“La clave de la evolución es la apertura al medio ambiente. Los sistemas abiertos pueden ser influenciados por el medio ambiente y el medio ambiente los hace cambiar. En cambio, los sistemas cerrados no pueden evolucionar, porque estos no pueden ser influenciados por el medio ambiente; precisamente por pretender preservar sus recursos internos.”  —Ilia Delio, The Emergent Christ

An Incarnational Practice: Entering and Leaving

There are many ways to enter a room, a space, a conversation. It is very common to go from room to room, activity to activity, without batting an eyelash or taking a breath. The invitation this week is to pause at the threshold of the text, to create a quiet space devoid of noise and movement before letting the words in. Breathe in deeply, breathe out intentionally, light a candle, remove your shoes, turn that space into a welcoming and open space ready to receive the fullness of the text.

And as you leave, pause at that threshold once again before leaving that space with the insights you might have gained, or the questions that might have arisen.

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What is being revealed? What is being moved? What is being asked?