The Divine Exchange, represented by the icon of perichoresis, the essence of the Trinity.
The Heart of Jesus’ Vision
“The heart of what Jesus was about, his vision, his way of being in the world, has something to do with exchange.” Cynthia Bourgeault, The Divine Exchange, 01:00 disc 1 track 1
“Jesus’ metaphor, when he looks out on the world, what he’s seeing is an exchange, which in the giving and receiving of the parts, makes manifest the mercy of God, and that’s its entire intention.” The Divine Exchange, 01:00 disc 2 track 14
“Jesus’ metaphysics is based on an exchange, which is not just human to human, and all sentient beings to all sentient beings, but divine to human, and human to divine.” The Divine Exchange, 03:40 disc 1 track 7
Mercy as Exchange
“The word mercy and the word commerce and merchant have exactly the same root. They come from an old Etruscan word, merc, which means exchange. It says that etymologically, anyway, the mercy of God has to be understood in terms of exchange. God doesn’t have mercy, God is mercy, because the nature of the divine is exchange.” The Divine Exchange, 01:11 disc 1 track 1
“A Cavalese monk down in Big Sur, who’s French-Canadian by birth, prays his own version of the Jesus Prayer where he says, Merci, Jesus. Jesus, merci. Pointing out that the word in French for thank you also comes from the same core root of exchange.” The Divine Exchange, 04:39 disc 1 track 5
“Psalm 103 has a line in it that says, ‘we swim in God’s mercy as in an endless sea’. We are in the mercy of God and of the mercy of God, as if the mercy of God is a dynamic, circulating field of exchange, of giving and taking, of changing places.” The Divine Exchange, 03:09 disc 1 track 1
The Complete Loop
“It’s in the giving and the receiving, it’s in the completion of this whole loop that you have the exchange. And it’s not in one part of the loop, but in the whole of the loop that the mercy of God is being manifest.” The Divine Exchange, 04:02 disc 1 track 5
“Grace falls upon us like dew from above. But we are also, in this wonderful exchange, sending up our conscious labor as the air vapor, if you want to call it, so that the circle is complete.” The Divine Exchange, 04:06 disc 6 track 5
Exchange as Trinity
“When we talk about Father spilling into Son, Son into Spirit, Spirit into Father, kenosis. So we find at the beginning that we’re looking at exchange as the essence of the Trinity.” The Divine Exchange, 02:00 disc 7 track 2
“The recognition that falls right out of the symbol, is that every kenosis is related to perichoresis. There’s powerful work in that. It says that no kenosis is an isolated act. And this is a profound clue for living the abundance. If you want to define or describe the perichoresis, the round dance, is the mercy, isn’t it? Because we’ve talked about how what comes forth from the exchange is the visible manifestation of the mercy of God.” The Divine Exchange, 02:00 disc 7 track 2
Reciprocal Feeding Between Realms
“Our relationship between the realms is not hierarchical. It’s not just that God the Almighty throws himself out, and we finally get down into this forgotten little realm where we are in coarse flesh. It’s much more gentle than that. Each realm, each succeeding density, has a way of feeding and receiving food from the next realm, so that there is a reciprocally feeding, nurturing, interrelatedness between all the realms.” Cynthia Bourgeault, The Divine Exchange, disc 4 track 6
Humility and Exchange
“Humility, spiritually understood, is the capacity for the exchange with your environment, the capacity for creative exchange with the now. And if you lack humility, you will not be able to have that creative exchange. Humility? Surrender.” Cynthia Bourgeault, Mary Magdalene & the Path of Conscious Love, 05:42 disc 6 track 7
Trusting the Exchange
“You have to trust the exchange, ultimately, the mercy of God, which is made known through the exchange, and submit yourself humbly and consciously to be a part of that. Without any attachment to outcome.” The Divine Exchange, 06:54 disc 6 track 7
The Hidden Treasure Principle
“I was a hidden treasure and I loved to be known, and so I created the worlds visible and invisible. Now, what if, when this world was created, nestled amongst all these other realms, that it was set up so that giving is receiving is the core principle by which things unfold rightly here and do what they have to do.” The Divine Exchange, 01:18 disc 3 track 2
In Divine Exchange disc 2 track 11, Cynthia talks about Logion 8:
Logion 8
Yeshua says...
A true human being
can be compared to a wise fisherman
who casts his net into the sea
and draws it up from below full of small fish.
Hidden among them
is one large, exceptional fish
which he seizes immediately,
throwing back all the rest without a second thought.
Whoever has ears let them understand this.
Logion 95
Yeshua says...
If you have money, do not lend it at interest.
Give it instead
to someone from whom you cannot take it back.
All quotations from the Gospel of Thomas are from Lynn C Bauman, Ward J Bauman, Cynthia Bourgeault, The Luminous Gospels (Praxis 2008)
Read the Impression introducing the Gospel of Thomas.
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