DM> ever teasing to haunt their judgments). Also, I found that my reading
 DM> his words were, often enough, in disagreement with others that wrote of
 DM> him (I was not sure if Huxley agreed, tolorated or could even understand
 DM> our Chardin). I never saw him as mystic, seeming more to me, the
 DM> scientist-  obsessed with bringing HIS God/Jesus into the total equation
 DM> as a "central" player in HIS giant rising dream. Though I liked it (and
 DM> even adopted it into my own pleasures of knowing), his play of conscious
 DM> motivation driving/leading evolution with mutation a spark in the
 DM> design, was some extra other beyond the present conservatism of science.
 DM> In his "noogenesis", I saw his man-God-merge, just beginning (20/21st
 DM> century) the rise, much as the first instants of a rocket taking off
 DM> with lots of dissipating power and noise, then to lift ever faster into
 DM> a new and knowable direction. I saw his "omega point" as the END of the
 DM> purely man-stage of history (though he did clever-ish equate it
 DM> centering sacred).  That this crisscrossing partnership (consciousness
 DM> being a dimension to meet in) would be flagged by a global coming
 DM> together ("noosphere") of objective knowledge (some now say the internet
 DM> or a next more advanced cousin of it), was a correct foresight, *BUT*but
 DM> from my view, he tended to "brush aside"  many darker, inconvenient
 DM> possibles.....!
   Bear in mind that at the close of _The Phenomenon of Man_ he entertains 
is
critics who take him to task for leaving out the immense problem of evil.  He
says that the phenomenon he has under the microscope [I'm paraphrasing now] 
r
more descriptively, macroscope "resembles nothing so much as it resembles the
way of the Cross."  This is where I see the kinship with Eckhardt who could
speak the language of those who are unable to function spiritually in any
language that is not either "holy" or "scientific."  
    But even the specific "content" of these thinkers is not what is 
rimarily
attractive for me.  It is, to place it in somewhat religious-sounding 
anguage
their respect for the mystery of a reality so keenly present to the
consciousness they find within themselves - or, in other words a certain
"sovereignty of God" if one will only accept that symbol as representative of
that same mysterious reality that does not deign to share with mortality all
of what is immortal or "lasting."   Although having no Roman Catholic
background whatsoever I have been thrown into contact on occasion with some
Jesuit scholars in the various disciplines and was amazed to find the absence
of the need to compartmentalize as between the sacred and the secular or to 
e
eternally doctrinalizing and thus able to give full and complete attention to
the subject matter of their science whether it be the history of Latin 
merica
or the field of astronomy.  Some of them, like Eckhardt, undoubtedly have no
hesitation (unlike me because I'm unable to reach their stature) in engaging
in the expected ritual while not really according it have any value except 
or
the edification of the peasant whose consciousness cannot reach beyond the
literal.  Whoever has pulled me out of THAT literalist quagmire I count among
my mentors and among these are some who were giants for me.
 DM> His moving bridge construct between science and God was beautiful, even
 DM> elegant ...but fragile. That he would attempt such a bridge, WITHOUT
 DM> demanding faith, is what caught him in the corner of my eye (and the
 DM> raised brow of his church)!  I
   Here again is that barrier of such an immense gap between our 
nderstanding
of the meaning of "faith."  I cannot say, David, that I "catch such people in
the corner of my eye" because their humble embracing of the scientific spirit
inside of the mystery that is almost a synonym for ultimate reality speaks to
a rare kind of honesty and "willingness to look" that races my blood, still.
Such people do not grow on every tree.  I'm thinking not only of Chardin but
also of Buber, Berdiaev, Law, St. John of the Cross, the Buddha and others.  
Sincerely, 
                                     Frank
                                                                              
                                                       
--- PPoint 2.05
---------------