5.1 The  Body Collective.

Three Flowers.

An Apology: 

The Praxis Project was not originally intended to be a theological treatise. The fact that it has the potential to be so, is a blinding flash of the obvious. The original 7 practices were spiritual contemplations. It is typically my experience that philosophical thinking and the mind are at odds with that which tends towards the practical and the physical. However, the brain is a part of the body, and the soul and/or spirit, together with the body, are a muddy mess, literally. Each one’s philosophy is a way of walking; pedantic and peripatetic.

A Discovery:

The 49-day journey so far has had a loose approach to goal setting, leading more so to the emergence of aims, or general direction rather than task accomplishment. Musing on the Body Collective can become abstract. Suffice it to say that ‘body’ can be a group of people. We use the term body casually in this way. This notion of the Body Collective began as the ecclesia, to avoid confusion with terms like Christianity and church. It has evolved to the Body Collective to identify a Body, flesh and blood once more.

An Observation:

The Body Collective is a clue to what appears to be the mystery of a silent heaven.

A simple telling of the story is this: the Creator, the Existor, the self-naming God YHWH, walked in the garden with the created; pedantic and peripatetic. The Presence of the Creator, over time, would be near and would be far. The Presence came to Abram in the form of the Promise. Gradually, the Presence seemed farther from the Household - the family, and the Community. The name of the Creator was no longer spoken aloud, but there were kings and prophets, and exile. YHWH the Word, to become self-evident, became the Body. The name Joshua* spoke that “YHWH is the Deliverer” —living, crucified, and Present - then absent. The absence again became the presence in the Spirit. The Body was no longer singular - but a Collective. This living body, the ecclesia, is the present manifestation of the Presence. The Body Collective is a Household - family, a Community, a Body, and has a Vocation and calling. The ecclesia, literally meaning to call out, means the citizens called out to assemble, together, to hear.