I am asking myself, listening within, “Is there anything else?”
The heart as the heart of listening and spirituality is a beginning.
As we learn more about the Vegas nerve connecting mind, heart, and gut we can say we listen with our whole being. And the Greek word parakaleo, a called one alongside, i.e. Befriender, comes into relevance.
St. Paul with all his skill as a lawyer and word smith used the word nine times in five verses. His way of expressing a unitive relational spirituality.
2 Corinthians
1:3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort (Befriending), 4 who comforts (Befriends) us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort (Befriend) those in any trouble with the comfort (Befriending) we ourselves receive from God. 5 For just as we share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ, so also our comfort (Befriending) abounds through Christ. 6 If we are distressed, it is for your comfort (Befriending) and salvation; if we are comforted, (Befriended) it is for your comfort (Befriending), which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer. 7 And our hope for you is firm, because we know that just as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our comfort (Befriending).
As we continue to learn more about our physiology we learn more about the Incarnation and our spirituality. As we view unity and oneness, a step forward was made by Hans Selye when the immune system was seen as two track. Specificity and non-specificity. Our antibiotics now acknowledge this. We have a both-and which brings unity and modifies either or since both-and brings balance. I think the Benedictines recognized balance and the researchers of the book Metaphoria included balance as one of the deep metaphors.
