Sermons incorporating Maya spirituality
The sense of creation remains intact in the magnificence of being, the essence of existing, the knowing of the purpose of life. Here, space is not given to alienation, to the path without meaning...We teach our descendants to respect everything that exists. Our Grandmothers and Grandfathers have known that we are not the owners of what is on the face of the earth. Everything is a manifestation [of the divine. There is a Natural Order, and it is what governs us. Our ancestors, the August Sages, lit the Sacred Fire thousands of years ago, and it has never gone out. It is our light, the heat of our spirit. This is the call that keeps us united in the Heart of Heaven, the Heart of the Spirits. Sages gave us the science of the cosmos and guided us on the path of life within the creation. The Spiral of Creation, the turns of “Najit” (space and time) in which the manifestation of reality arises. The consciousness of life, of reality and its connection with the cosmos, permits a guide, a way to manage the influence of the energies of each day, in each person. The reason for existence is to be human, and its lesson is in harmony with Mother Nature. This knowledge is the legacy received by the first mothers and the first fathers. Carlos Barrios. Ch’umilal Wuj: Libro del destino.
The Maya concept of najit about is how space and time come together and is how we define ourselves and our path. We must recognize and honor where we came from, our spiritual and biological ancestors, messy as they may be, to know where we are going. To understand who we are today, we must understand our past. The first verses of Matthew (the first book of the New Testament) concern Jesus’s lineage, his najit. The editors of the Bible thought it was essential to understand Jesus’s past before explaining his birth, life, death, and resurrection.
Sermon on Najit: The Intersection of Space and Time
Sermon on Dance of the Moors and Christians
The community of San Juan La Laguna, Guatemala has a dance brought from Spain that commemorates the Catholic Kings expulsion of the Moors, along with the persecution and forced conversion of the Jews in 1492. This dance performed by the Maya about a prior victory of their own conquerors has multiple layers of meaning. Prior to this, the “dance” of these three cultures had led to hundreds of years of great innovation and creativity in the Iberian Peninsula. Similarly, the interaction of the Maya, Ladino, and Gringo communities within Guatemala have led to developments in art, architecture, theology, language, and commerce. The Devine can be found in these spaces of chaos and creativity.