1 John 1: 1-4 Beloved: What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we looked upon and touched with our hands concerns the Word of life — for the life was made visible; we have seen it and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life that was with the Father and was made visible to us— what we have seen and heard we proclaim now to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us; for our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. We are writing this so that our joy may be complete. ****************************** Solitary Souls are we. We yearn for “Christós,” a Divine Remedy, a Divine Ointment that heals. An Ancient Peoples Yearnings, the Salvation of a Nation - history intervenes, time expires, new continents are discovered, yearnings become individualized and personalized as per modalities of cultural expression, the yearned for Savior of a Nation of Ancient People becomes our “Personal Lord and Savior.” Such reductionism - it is history in its efforts to cover what is distasteful, what threatens polite society. History eschews the real lived-life narrative of human beings and, in the process misrepresents the ineffable nature of the “Christós. ” Early in my life, I read both the Hebrew Scriptures as well as the Christian Scriptures through and through. In the Hebrew Scriptures I discerned in journal form an attempt by a people to uncover and unveil the “Christós .” Much of Hebrew Scriptures was the journey of men of a specific culture with a self-described and assigned mission to humanity narrowly conceived. In this journaling is to be found an evolution of relationship with the Divine. This evolution was not divinely pure. Many a time, the Divine was said to have sanctioned the worst atrocities imaginable by men, committed by men. Hebrew Scripture, in its evolution, is instructive of proper and improper usage of the term “God,” that is, Human Kind’s use and abuse of God’s image. Sadly, periods of improper use of “God’s Name” is followed inevitably by periods of human kind’s imploring the same “God” for mercy. In time, Hebrew Scriptures flowed from the dimly lit backroom of human consciousness, a room filled with myth, murky symbols, tremendous fears, and an ungodly god; to the brilliant entrance of a cave with Godly Radiance and Light beaming over the shoulders of man, casting wonderful shadows that human consciousness could with imaginary zeal imagine the Divine - Divinity’s Creativeness, Divinity’s Purposiveness, and Divinity’s Movement into the Shadows, with the Shadows and for the Shadows. Light provided mere humans with shadows, images elucidating and elaborating a reality that human consciousness could only understand indirectly. Hebrew Scriptures is the kindly uplifting of the Human Heart, Mind and Soul in Human Kind’s understanding, not of God, but of Human Kind’s own fallibility, Humanities own responsibility for continual vigilance and discernment. Hebrew Scripture is a parochial movement from humanity’s fractious tribal past to some nebulous conception of humanities oneness, and towards some yet to be described unity of humanity. Hebrew Scriptures is the child crawling before it walks. It is the awkward attempt of humanity and of a people at a particular time and place in history to move past its penchant for tribal or national preeminence. Hebrew Scripture inchoately edges humanity forward encouragingly in outline form to some as yet defined “liberation,” to the embrace of a “Promise” yet to be articulated, based on the premise that life can be profoundly more creative, more human, a life of being with others in community. It is a movement from the backrooms, the wretched caves, the shadows lurking in the soul of human kind to the entrance of the Cave. In Christian Scripture, the Sons and Daughters of Zion (a particular people at particular place in history) tentatively ventured outside the Cave. They faced a blinding Light. Can they believe what they are seeing? Yeshua ben Yousef, a carpenter, by trade, an itinerant preacher by vocation – is this it? How disappointing. Imaging a “God” and this is it? He claims an authority. How dare He. This is but a man, a vagrant with no pillow to lay his head on at night, no shelter to claim his own. He is a beggar, a vagrant whose words discomforts the comfortable, disempowers the powerful. This man is said to be a King, but asserts his Kingdom is not as envisaged by his peers, and is certainly not of the world. This Kingdom, he assures us in his own words, is both a promise and a reality. It is a “Promise on the Authority” of an itinerant preacher and beggar. Can we believe? ********************** Must our God be the image of an ominous Father, stern and unyielding? Must our God be the stilted image, a Crèche, sanitizing the unsightly, deodorizing the untenable stench of humanity and animality? Must our God be that distant “Unmoving, Mover,” of ancient Greek philosophy who so distains the human world that he elects to have nothing to do with it? ********************** No, the God of Christianity which I embrace is the God who creatively engages the human family in a “Meal,” as an expressed sense of Divine indwelling with and in Humanity and Humanities harmoniously dwelling with each other in peace. It is those evanescent moments of solidarity, of sharing of “Meal,” it is in these Last Supper moments that we experience divinely life. No, the God of Christianity which I embrace is the God that suffers the realities of being human, for being truthful when truthfulness is disdained by the powers that be, it is the suffering of the inequities perpetrated against the innocence of men, by other men and their institutions. It is in these many deaths, these many Crucifixion moments that we experience divinely life. No, the God of Christianity which I embrace is the God who exalts and frees by a Purposiveness that endures all suffering, all human calamities. It is the Divine Uplifting of Humanity. It is an ultimate affirmation of the goodness of men and women. It is in these rare but glorious exaltations, in these resurrection moments, that we experience divinely life. “Christós ” is the capacity of humanity to divinely experience life. “Christós ” is very real fleshiness of life. It is the moment when the Divine issues out from an eternity into a very real spatio-temporal continuum. It is a continuous Creativity that lovingly rearranges the Cosmos by a play with an infinite number of permutations of the possible within the limited givenness of reality. “Christós ” is Divine Purposiveness wrapped in inspiration for some and for other’s an authority. It is found in all scriptures of all people. It is not limited to this or that people, or this or that tribe. “Christós ” is a Divine Wind, a Great Spirit that embraces an infinite number of possibilities within the givenness of reality. It is for some, humanity being ushered forward despite of our willfulness and our wantonness. For others, it is humanity letting go and letting the Divine Wind furrow the fields of our imaginings with a World that is Not-Yet but is To-Be. It is the Divine Wind embracing and embedding of itself in the very sinew and tissue of human life. It moves us. It engages us practically, sometimes pragmatically, in the writing of the divine narrative, the end of which is solely the province of the Divine. Life divinely experienced always begins with a child, and perhaps the child within. In scientific language it may be perceived as a process. In real life, in the narrative of our lives, it is an allowance to play with the Unknown in confidence and with an expectation and a promise of Joy. Life divinely experienced always ends with relationships. Relationships mirror the Divine by the intimacy of Creativity with Purposiveness in the dervish Dance of the Divine Wind in and with a Not-Yet To-Be. “Christós ” is always and forever the joy of human beings playing together. Let it be. Let us play. Let us play again as people.
Posted on: Sun, 28 Dec 2014 02:01:57 +0000
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