Imagination and Suffering Christianly

We can say this:

At the center of all the ugliness in the world is a sacrifice that calls us to change the way we think about things. There is for us a man on a cross, who shows us where God has entered into our pain, our suffering our emotional state, and said “enough.”

God has not chosen to abstain from us, and to stand aloof, the cross is where we know that God is on our side. An ugly world stood in need, and we “held him of no account.” (Isa. 53:3) Jesus shows us how God imagines the future, through the fact of his resurrection, God’s imagination about our world is one that sets all things right, that faces the realities we face, and stands alongside us.

We have one who stands in our midst alongside us, showing us that this suffering is not the end, that our suffering is not the end. There is a man who has entered into the heart of where the world feels pain, and he is calling us to go there too. He has asked us to enter his life, his teachings, and take upon ourselves his yoke, his burden, his love.

Imagination is not about feeling peppy, but rather is an active engagement in thinking creatively about reconciliation. Christian imagination is as much about ecstatic joy as it is about ecstatic engagement with the reality of suffering. While it leads us to aesthetic beauty and works of art, it leads us into the shadow of the cross, it is from the sufferings of Our Lord that we learn to see the world rightly. Christians do not assume we see reality, rightly, in fact we must assume that learning to see reality rightly is the first task of our imagination.

The Christian Imagination calls us to enter into that same place where the world feels pain, and actively imagine what the love of God looks like there and to set about the task of expressing and ushering in that love, be it in architecture, music, art, sculpture, painting, reflection, philosophy, theology, conversation, ecology, and everything else.

St. Mark the Monk

“Unless a man gives himself entirely to the Cross, in a spirit of humility and self-abasement; unless he casts himself down to be trampled underfoot by all and despised, accepting injustice, contempt and mockery; unless he undergoes all these things with joy for the sake of the Lord, not claiming any kind of human reward whatsoever – glory or honor or earthly pleasures – he cannot become a true Christian”

This is a quote by the Orthodox Father, St. Mark the Monk. I love this quote, and I think it rings true. Christianity is the process by which we learn to renounce all things save One, and to will this one thing is the purity which we all seek.

Glossolalia and the Charismatic Life

I’ve been spending a decent amount of time reconnecting to my charismatic roots, in a more constructive way, and trying to draw out some work from myself that could help to form a charismatic theology that is from the movement and for the movement. Recently, I’ve been thinking about the glossolalia, and the place of spiritual gifts in the Christian life, often certain parts of the Charismatic/Pentecostal movement has seen it as a concrete sign of a baptism of the Holy Spirit, an ontological shift that is evidenced by the gift, the words often used being ‘initial evidence’.

Yet when we look at the earliest Christian traditions, baptism itself was baptism in the Holy Spirit. When we are baptized we are baptized in the name of the Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. I think our movement has done a disservice to the Triunity of God by making the baptism of the Holy Spirit a secondary evidence, and has largely missed the point of what it means to speak in other tongues whether of men or of angels. Paul nowhere says that the Corinthians, who are seemingly the most charismatic among the early churches, have been sealed with a second evidence. Nor does he rejoice at this display of tongues but goes about correcting abuses and speaking to them about the worth of prophecy and love. If there were any evidence of the tongues being an ontological distinction or the evidence of a special blessing, I think Paul might have at least mentioned it in his address to the Corinthian church.

To discuss glossolalia or for that matter any spiritual gift is to speak of the Spirit Himself, as active in our experience, and to speak of Christ as manifest through the Spirit. When we speak of the Spirit we are being drawn to discuss not one member of the godhead in isolation, but must remember that the Trinity is always at work in a unity in otherness, and that this will reflect in the way the Spirit works in us as well.

When we speak of the gifts of the Spirit, we are speaking of the Spirit’s nature in how He affects the gifts in us and has effect through us in their application in the community which is the fellowship of his sufferings. The spirit testifies to the kenotic self effacement of Christ and it is through this that we recognize the divine act as love. The spirit also fulfills this kenotic movement by being the fullness of love which descends into our midst to draw us up into love, and to show the way by making clear the sign of the cross. Further this fulfillment takes place by bringing us into the same motion of kenotic self effacement, bringing its completion not only in the Son of God, but in the community which is His body. Further by emptying himself to be among us, He continues the work of Christ. The Spirit does not cease to testify to the kenotic self effacement of the Son, but continues to testify in and through us, by our own kenotic movement which is an embodied sign of this continued act and should be expressed most concretely in the charisms of the community which the life and suffering of Christ has made possible in the Spirit.

The Spirit as a member of the godhead suffers and leads us to suffering as a primary way of uniting us with Christ, Paul even goes on to call the church a fellowship of suffering. He also mentions elsewhere that His sufferings are the signs of his apostleship, it seems strange in a culture that puts credentials in other areas of merit than suffering. The Christian gifts and life are going to be drawn from the depths of suffering with Christ, our life as Christians is always a receiving of God’s revelation, and that revelation culminates in the divine glory that is the cross. Thus the cross should be ever before us, if we are to be in the constant reception of revelation. If it is ever before us, the cross will always invite us to participate in it, and thus draw closer to Christ. The cross is the act of Divine love, and its objectivity as revelation will make the cross take form in our lives. The suffering of the Christian is a mark of love, a sign of dedication to the One whom they have responded to showing forth unity. Christ himself makes possible for his disciples to follow Him by giving them gifts, “he ascended, he led captivity captive and gave gifts to men.” He that descended to the lowest depths was raised with a new vitality that allowed Him to bestow gifts upon us, and of those gifts one is the grace(charis) not only to believe but also to suffer. It has been (charismata) gifted to us to suffer.

God wishes to speak to the world and he does this through His theo-pragmatic self-revelation. It is the act of God in Christ that speaks to us. The God-Act is always God’s primary means of communication. God speaks to us through the absolute divine act of crucifixion and resurrection, this deed always interprets itself to us, and will not be subsumed as completely intelligible or available to us because it is absolute. It is always opening itself up more, but it will never cease opening, its self-emptying is eternal, and its message is Omni-temporal. The charisma of the Spirit relate to this in the following manner:
Our acts in the Spirit are manifestations of the continued act of God in Christ and are a participation in the divine narrative of God’s liberation of the world through His suffering.
Where the charisms truly are, there is Christ at work in the world, really He Himself, not just a spiritual presence, but in some way He himself is present where the Spirit is. If this is so, then the charismata are very similar to the sacraments of the church, highlighting the inter-dependability of both. Further these actions are already in some provisional way participating in the victory of God, it is not that miracles and the manifestation of gifts are themselves the kingdom, but they are signs of the kingdom, and announcing to us the coming of God.
Our actions in the spirit should take on the form of crucifixion/resurrection, for it is by the Spirit that Christ is able to be crucified. IT is also by the Spirit that Christ is raised. So too the church can only be charismatic if she is led along the path of Christ to enjoin the fellowship of His sufferings and show forth both the suffering of God and His resurrection. Charisms are about both our suffering and our joy, our burdens as well as our celebrations.
The charisms we experience are limitless because the Spirit is always interpreting the act of God on our behalf in new ways due to His infinite ability to create and diversify. There is no number to the spiritual gifts, but rather, the Spirit is always finding creative ways to speak in and through and to the church at all times. Further, it seems counter-intuitive to the biblical narrative to limit the gifts to a certain number or kind, rather we should allow the work of the Spirit in anything that builds the church in such a way that Christ is present to be considered a gift.
God speaks to the world through the church and her charisms, but only insofar as these charisms serve God and neighbor in a unified motion, the charisms of the church are never private, but for the sake of the world and the building up of the church.
Because the deed of God is self-interpreting as Love, our charisms must flow from this love, and will manifest according to our ability for solidarity and perception of the needs of our brothers and sisters. The deed of God among His people will manifest as love, self-interpreting through the actions of a crucified-glorified body gathered at His table. Our deeds in God necessarily correspond with and answer to the deed of God and thus the cross is the criterion of our charisms.
The charisms are always pointing to the absolute which is the cross, as the manifestation of divine love, and must embody this message in such a manner that their manifestation is personal (i.e. they are for the sake of our neighbor, and must participate in the love that is had between persons) liturgical, (i.e. they are always for the sake of God and the true worship of Him, including the establishment of justice and the manifestation of mercy as part of our worship of God) political, (i.e. a calling of the world to repentance) ecclesial, (i.e. a manifestation for the sake of the community and the enjoining of the one body in unity under the one sign which is the meal we gather at) and self-emptying (i.e. the charisms should lead us away from self awareness and into God/neighbor awareness, if they do not do this, then they are subject to our suspicion). Thus through these acts the charisms are manifestations of the self-interpretation of the act of divine love.

The life of Christ as a whole points to the cross and becomes intelligible only from this point, we cannot separate the teachings of Christ from the fact that they too point to the cross. Every word of teaching and the whole life of Christ is united by what Von Balthasar has termed a “Logos of the Cross” (Love Alone is Credible 85). That same logos is the center point for our discussion of Christian gifts, we cannot separate the gifts from what they signify, they are signs of the suffering Christ, who still redeems the world through the one act to which we enjoin ourselves at baptism and in a continual offering up of our bodies as living sacrifice, including our gifts.

To be gifted means to be crucified with Him in order to point to the center of the reality we as Christians witness to, which is the self-glorification of divine love in the Cross of Christ. The life of Christ is the fullness of the manifestation of the power and wisdom of God precisely in its impotence by the standards of the world, and so too our charisms are signs of this manifestation. Our charisms are just as equally about our union with God as they are about our abandonment by God, the two sides represent the life of Christ, crucifixion-resurrection, both are indissoluble for the act of revelation. The act which still takes place among us for the sake of the world. And the Christian life is the reception of revelation and thus must take upon itself this dialectical form if it is to truly embrace the whole of Christian existence, for it must show forth both sides of the coin if it is to truly reveal the sign of God in the world. It is thus in short that the crucifixion is inseparable from the resurrection, the darkness we undergo for the sake of light, the suffering for the sake of love.

This means that in order to properly show the crucifixion-resurrection dynamic, they church must be gathered around a concrete manifestation. Namely we must be a people gathered around the Eucharist. In order to properly discern the way in which the crucifixion-resurrection dynamic is carried out we need the sign of Christ’s body as the concrete manifestation able to guide us and interpret itself to us. In order to do so, the church needs to be deeply sacramental and confessional. The sacraments, and especially baptism and the eucharist show the dynamic tension of death and new life, and the whole life of discipleship is only intelligible from the standpoint of death and resurrection. “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.” In order to properly discern the nature of the charisms the church must be gathered around the meal at which the crucifixion and resurrection are Omni-temporal, the eucharist. The reason for this is that the eucharist transcends time, coming to us from the future of God, the only way that the body of Christ can be present to us today as a means of grace is from that time in which God’s will is made perfect. The table at which we gather is the Lord’s and the bread which we eat is His body, the community gathered around it is His, and He must take form in them that would gather at His table. The eucharist is the crucifixion, resurrection and eschaton present at once in a single event which challenges us with the whole life of Christ and its significance as a remembered and continued sacrifice and a present as well as future victory. Further it serves to show us the past, present and future of the community who gathers around it. It is the means by which we remember the distinctive nature of our community, and the creeds likewise are a verbal confession of that to which we bear witness. If we are to be a community that can discern properly between evil and false spirits and the Spirit of the Lord, we will need to maintain that which the Lord has given us as gifts for our discernment. Both eucharist and creeds are tangible reminders of the nature of our community not by pointing to the specifics of the persons in the community or their gifts, but to the God which is worshipped. Without being confessional and sacramental the charismatic church descends into spiritualism and personality cult which becomes indistinguishable from the virtues of the outside world. Conversely, without a properly Charismatic presence Christianity becomes a way of thought or a system of theses, not a way of living that is objective.

Christ has shown us that love is not something light or carried out by emotional disposition, it is something suffered. Love is the act of God’s reconciling the world to Himself, our love derives from the divine love. It is something borne, and so too our charisms since they flow from love, must bear the burdens of love and manifest the scars and markings which validate our identity in the fellowship of love. Love is not our own but comes to us from the outside inviting our participation in itself. Love is objective, and bears in itself both something wholly other and something disclosed to us, it transcends immanence and escapes expression in its full reality. Yet it comes to us from above and makes itself known among us, becoming an object giving itself over to us, and thus inviting us to be subject to it. The Divine Love suffers the world, and in our participation in that, through our charisms we too must suffer the world for the charisms are our participation in the divine life of the Trinity which is a suffering. The Spirit continues to intercede in our behalf with labor pains and groans and uttering too deep for words. So the church that is charismatic must be a suffering church, one laden with the burdens of love if there is to be known among her the love of God. If she is to be truly enjoined to her lord she must join him at his cross, which makes the way for her resurrection. It is only in sharing the divine death that we can part take in the divine life, we see this in Paul’s theology of baptism.

To be gifted is to part take in God’s love, and every Christian life and every human life do so, every life is gifted life. “To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good” (1 Cor. 12:7 RSV). Yet these charisms are eschatological, they are signs of the love of God from below. They are the manifestation of the love of God among us which sigh for the coming of God, and the fullness of the love of God from above. The charisms while working for the common good of the church, as all manifestations of the Spirit are, work also in tandem with the final good, which for us is that final reconciliation of all things. Our charisms are pointers to the fullness of God’s love from above, they bear in themselves the manifestation of longing for the fullness of all things. The gifts we bear are the sufferings of love which long for the completion of all things, which groans for their wholeness and the coming of God. In discussing gifts, Paul also goes on to talk about the members working together and where one member suffers, all suffer together. This seems to imply that while the charismata work for the common good they also have an aspect of unifying solidarity, where if one is suffering by grace as a gift, all suffer, and if one member is honored all rejoice together (1 Cor. 12:26).

In all the aforementioned ways, the charismata are ultimately a sign, pointing to the reality of the divine love, and thus calling into question the world’s self understanding and showing forth that reality is only intelligible from the logos of the cross, such that the signs of our charisms show the world the possibility of love. The manifestation of our gifts are signs to the world of the guilt which it bears, calling into question idolatries and corruptions and placing before them the objective divine love which is a consuming fire. The credibility of the charismata are in relation to their correspondence in relation to the divine love, this is where they become authoritative among us and distinct from other actions. The charismata of the church are prophetic, they serve the community calling it to true faith by witnessing to the love of God in a theo-drama, acts of God for the people drawing all reality towards the center that is Christ Himself.

All Christian spiritual gifts have nuptial and thus eschatological meaning. The gifts, like our embodiment are for the sake of our union with the Christ and with each other. They have meaning for the sake of our union, and our marriage in the body of Christ. The whole purpose of the gifts as with human sexuality is not happiness, pleasure or empowerment, but theosis. The gifts are for the intimacy of the fellowship which is ours and are sacred for the up building of the intimate life that we share in as a community gathered around body and blood. They are gifts that we present to others and to the world, as a sign of union. Our gifts are signs of our union with each other and with Christ, thus they serve as gifts not for ourselves, but for one another and in serving one another they all serve the One Lord. Our gifts are for our self-disclosure to receive our being from the church and Christ and in doing so, are marks of the being which we are developing into, which is God’s call to us. The gifts are ultimately about our development into the likeness of God, and where the charismata are not developing a community that looks like the crucified-glorified Christ, their use and validity is in question.

Now we proceed to the second half of this essay the construction of a doctrine of glossolalia from the logos of the cross. We must undermine many word-faith and Pentecostal uses of the glossolalia as a form of individual piety and development, and propose alternately what is truly going on and what the gift of the glossolalia is for. First off, let me distinguish between glossolalia and xenoglossia, for the sake of not ignoring completely the other. Glossolalia is ecstatic speech, and xenoglossia is the speaking of a language previously unknown to the speaker. I see both as valid, though the glossolalia in particular has need of reappropriation within the logos of the cross if it is to cease to be a form of individualistic pietism of the most perverse and idolatrous kind. I think that the glossolalia can be a meaningful and powerful form of prayer but it must be appropriated properly in order to have this validity.

If our experience of the Spirit is not the experience of something wholly other that modifies the self, then there is really no experience at all (Spirit of Life, 30). Human being means being-in-relationship and without an otherness or a draw towards otherness in our charismatic life we suffer the loss of humanity especially in the midst of our attempt to have greater spiritual experience. So my attempt will be to draft a glossolalia that is in, with and for the other, and thus truly gives us to ourselves properly by reminding us that even we are mediated to ourselves by Christ, and His otherness draws us towards Him, transforming us through real experience in encounter. Without that experience of the other, it is questionable whether we have had experience at all, and if we cannot give expression to it, then the experience lacks depth and will pass from us. Charismatic theology needs to find expression that liberates it from the throes of imperialism and post-enlightenment rationalism. The glossolalia need not have a “scientific” validity in order to be affirmed. Pragmatism is not afterall the criterion of the church’s judgment on matters, but the true worship of Christ is, and so too, our glossolalic experience is about the expressing of Christ among us.

The glossolalia placed within a logos of the cross realizes that it is not for our own sake that we bear such a gift but for sake of the world, its purpose should be to serve God and neighbor as is the purpose of all spiritual gifts. While it seems slightly unthinkable from within certain traditions of the use of glossolalia, I think it is necessarily going to have to develop beyond focusing on self-edification if the glossolalia will retain Christian meaning in our lives.

For some, this gift is all about personal edification, but I think that this is an erroneous starting point. Contextually if we look at the passage Paul is talking about the order of service and I agree with Paul that it is highly unproductive for one person to speak in tongues at the front of a service or to take control of a service and not be able to utter intelligible words. This obviously can only serve to edify themselves, and I think that at this point is making a pointed statement about their use of tongues, not saying that it should be used for personal edification but rather that it does no good to stand up and claim a center of attention while being self-serving and not serving others. I think that a proper reading of this passage sees Paul telling congregants to stop claiming attention with manifestations that do not benefit the whole and build up the entire church. I don’t think that Paul is saying that the self-edification is a purely negative thing either, but is rather calling it what it is, an act of pride among the Corinthians. It is not to say that all acts of self-edification are such, but rather that we should approach them with the realization that they are a secondary function, and subject to suspicion. Self-edification done Christianly is the edification of my neighbor and my God, the only way to edify myself is to attend to God and neighbor and find the contours of myself in the process. The purpose of the gifts is the up building of the church, and the unification of the One Body. In truth the manifestations of the Spirit will come when the people seek to build up the church (1 Cor. 14:12).

I think that the glossolalia, if we were to look at it cohering with Paul’s general theology of the church as a fellowship of Christ’s sufferings will have to be coming out of a recognition of our weakness. That is not to say our sinfulness, but our limitations in areas of compassion, in knowledge, in ability to pray properly and in our ability to speak to God as we ought to. The glossolalia are an admission of weakness, and we need a recognition that this gift is not our own, but an expression of the Spirit’s utterings which are sometimes too deep for words. The charism of tongues is not something we turn on and off, despite the experience of many charismatic/Pentecostals it is rather something that presents itself to us and invites us into itself. The glossolalia is not a possession of ours, but is possesses us, and draws us into awareness of the world. It is a form of intercession which we do not initiate, but rather are drawn up into. We must speak of it this way if it is to have any significance at all as a true experience of the wholly other, for if the glossolalia becomes our possession then we are claiming to have become able to control God.

We do not possess the Spirit, but rather are called to self-disclosure by which we come to know God, it is in our vulnerability that we see that it was God who first made Himself vulnerable to us. The glossolalia is an invitation to the realization that even we will be at a loss for words and will not be able to express fully the depths of human suffering, or the heights of human joy, and for that, there are utterings which embrace the whole of life and draw us into their work. God draws us into the work of His praying for us by allowing us to speak with and for Him, making us part of the inner life of the Trinity and allowing our voice to be heard in His, and His voice to be heard in our own. But what these voices are saying together is not for the benefit of the one praying alone, it is an enjoining with the Spirit to groan for the whole creation. Glossolalia is about the fellowship with Christ, which is a fellowship of His sufferings,. This is truly the manifestation and fulfillment of the self-emptying of the Son, for He emptied Himself and continues to do so by the Spirit. His Spirit is drawing us into Himself by giving Himself to us and through us, as well as with us emptying Himself to pray for the whole creation.

The spirit gives utterance, when we speak of the personal dimension of the experience of the glossolalia we must remember that we are weak, and that God is made strong in our weakness. Our experience does not always have utterance, there are things which simply escape words, and cannot be brought down into them no matter how hard we might try. This is where our limitations begin and the glossolalia’s power comes to be known to us in our weakness. When we cannot find expression for things, either life in general or words in particular, the Spirit grants us power to stand before God and pray and communicate and confess as we should. But glossolalia is not merely a matter of the ecstatic function of the mouth, though this is the primary expression, I believe that glossolalia is an expression of the entire body as a communicative language. Body language can be glossolalic, meaning the movement of our bodies, in dance or prayer can be expressions of yearnings and utterings in behalf of the creation. The glossolalia is about the weakness of our lives to express the fullness of reality when we are at a lack for words.

God is the justifier of our experience by drawing it into Himself and expressing it through things we cannot utter, through the expression of our mouths as well as our bodies. The gift of tongues is about embodiment, it is about our bodies as able to speak with and in God for God and for our neighbor. The body in this charism becomes embraced in the intercessory work of the spirit, as both an ecstatic praise or an ecstatic lament. The point of its ability to be both a praise or a lament is highly important for this charism because historical evidence shows both, and we must remember as I mentioned above that our charisms as a whole should reflect both the crucifixion and the resurrection.

The glossolalia is meaningful, and is a part of the overall whole of Christian devotion, but does not take precedence as an initial sign of an ontological change. I remember as a newly converted Charismatic wondering why not everyone spoke in tongues, and being taught that not everyone had been “enlightened” to the baptism of the Holy Spirit, and that I was among those lucky enough to have received some sort of extra special grace. Contrary to this, I think it’s important that spiritual gifts are not signs of an extra special work of God that sets someone above or beneath us. We cannot adduce that someone is very spiritual or not spiritual based on the gifts they manifest, we are to know each other by the supreme gift and the center of the Christian life, which is love. The glossolalia do not create a special class of spiritual people who enjoy an access to God’s presence and Spirit that others do not know. Let’s call that idea what it is, cultural imperialism, the tongue-speaking have fashioned themselves as the ecclesiastical elite, and regard those who do not speak in tongues as in some ways not experiencing God in the fullness that they enjoy. It is forcing a culture of “us” the tongue speaking to try to make “them,” the non tongue-speaking, to become like “us” and in agreeing with this idea we are actually alienating, and hindering the work of the Spirit.

The rule of Christ is not hegemonic, but an invitation to embrace, it is a self-disclosure, and if enjoining the church means opening ourselves to a community that has opened itself to us, then we cannot have a doctrine of tongues that cannot square with the Gospel’s. It is a sign of the work of the Spirit towards the end, it is one among various gifts being used by God to intercede for and with the community, it is up building the church and can be used as a meaningful form of prayer that acknowledges weakness, and realizes our own fallibility. Looking to the cross we find our challenge and we see our own weakness, looking along the cross we see what shall become true of all reality because of this great love. Modifying G.K. Chesterton, I think that Christians should be radically engaged in celebration, but also radically committed to suffering, seeing both as necessary and essential to the true life of faith. Our charismata allow us to enjoin the fellowship of His sufferings. The fellowship of His sufferings though, is also the fellowship of the life giving Spirit, and both sides must be retained as viable and necessary, ecstatic celebration and ecstatic lament are both sides of the one Christian way which stands in the shadow of the cross, witnessing to the reconciliation of all things that is happening and has already happened.

De Profundis

The darkness feels stifling, consuming the light of my eyes
Choking the frail hope i retain that you will be my deliverance
I am in the midst of great darkness, and no lights present themselves to guide me
I am lost beneath a great cloud of fog, and my direction is uncertain

They said you would be my light, They said that if I had enough faith you would always make everything work.  They said i could trust in you to make me normal. They spoke of your great glory, but it was only to serve the ends they thought appropriate. They told me not to be sad, to overcome by pretending to be happy. They told me to tell others I was blessed and not cursed, above only and not beneath, more than a conqueror. They told me to conquer and make violence against the devil and his forces, they told me to be a one man army, to have the faith of a prophet.

I was led into the place where my hands were stained with blood, I tried to fix myself
I was led to the place where malice was my accomplice and a altar was placed before me
I was led upon the dais to behold the altar, and I burned incense to myself.
I was led to the place where my discomfort was my enemy, and i had to atone for myself.
I was led into darkness.

I was told that what matters is me, that who I am, and MY story are way God is going to use me. And now I am in deep darkness. I was told to seek after the things of the world, just to do it in a way that appeased the mandates of cultural humility.

The darkness swallows everything. There is not one thing that escapes decay, not one thing that escapes corruption, and we are all fallen. I am in darkness, and I am unhappy. I am in pain, and I am discontent. I sometimes wish I was not acquainted with You, and Your gospel. I sometimes wish I was different, another. I sometimes desire to be forsaken but you will not leave me. You have called me to the cross, and it pains me, you have called me to death and it is not easy.

You have called me to a holy dread, and it will not give me the desires of my wicked heart. You have spoken to me by speaking to the world, and we tremble at the sign the cross is our mt. zion, and we have all seen the glory of the lord and been called to respond.

You have started a world in which there is no more pain, and that world is already-not yet
where there is joy, you are there, where there is suffering, you are there, where your church suffers, you suffer with us, where your church is crucified, you are too, where your people are beaten and scourged, this is already our glory, where your people are weeping and famished, you are starving among the weakest

You are the human, you are the objective humanity, you are the one who knows what it means to live before the Father as a man teach me my beloved and cross shattered Lord, what it means to suffer unto the shedding of blood
and reassure me that these sufferings are well to experience. The suffering of the world is not foreign to you, you are the suffering one, you are the ever suffering one, we remember the testament of your great sorrow, and we enjoin our suffering to yours. You are dead, but not atheistically, we do not proclaim your death because you have ceased to be
but we proclaim your death, because we know that without it, there could be no life, we proclaim your death because we know we have been found wanting, we proclaim your death because it shows us we are accepted, we are loveless sinners, beloved children

Death is our enemy, and we reject her power, we reject her sting, yet the suffering is our life, and our sweet promise, the darkness we pass through is for the sake of light, the darkness we endure is exhaustible, and we bear the fury of the world with courage, not because we are inexhaustible, but because you are, and as we bear the suffering of the whole world enjoined in you, we shall find that your inexhaustible love is what guides us through the night and gives us assurance in the midst of despair

it is not that we are happy, but that we have courage to endure our fears, it is not that we have power, but that you make possible a community which does not need it, it is not that we have blessings according to the world, but that we have one bread, and one cup which is the sweetest blessing of all it is not that we are the most miraculous, but that you yourself have given us the greatest miracle of all. It is not that we have the greater works which we we seek, there is truly no greater love, no greater act than to suffer and lay down one’s life. Teach me to suffer by the way of your son, that my life brings to you principalities and powers subjected and laid at your feet Holy King of Israel

From the depths we cry to you oh Lord, your unhappy, and suffering children
From the depths we cry to You, your beloved children

Spirit be my guide in darkness, that where I am in the midst of sheol you are there
Spirit be my purger, and let my purgatory be in this life
Jesus be my teacher, that i may follow even unto death
Father, be that which you are, self-emptying love

 

Bring that vengeance which we seek, peace that destroys the powers of war. bring the vengeance which makes peace out of chaos, which brings order out of nothing. bring the vengeance and the wrath which dissolves alienation and marginalization. bring the justice which overcomes corruption, and the various injustices of the world, bring about that which you promised, the reconciliation of all things and most of all, give us the patience to wait, with love and trust that you will not fail us.

Can I just get this off my chest?

 

I dunno, going to the monastery this break really really fucked with me, head and body, mind and spirit. I feel like i’ve had a few too many screwdrivers and none of it was worth the drinking.

 

But I also feel like I got drunk on something substantial, and am inebriated with longing to return to the simple and unburdened life of the monastic way. Forsaking all things, and living a life in service to God and the world through prayer.

 

It was a challenging experience and I’m not sure I was able to really appreciate it fully because of the emotional baggage I carried with me there that i needed to sort through before i could find any semblance of rest. I haven’t slept well since that first night there. I did all my crying on the way over there, and was just exhausted by the end of the first night.

 

I feel like a shell of a person some nights, and i feel as if since i returned i’ve been living half aware and half exhausted, and fully guilty.

 

I don’t feel like I’m at all present in or even really observing my life. I feel as if all my energy is going towards incessant worrying and all i can do is sit back and wait until my whole world comes crashing down around me. I am honestly afraid, i’m afraid of what I’ll do with myself. Afraid of what she means to me. Afraid of what I mean to myself. Afraid that I’m falling too comfortably into orthodoxy and receding into mother church for the comforts of her ability to supply those answers which I need without being brave enough to seek them on my own. Afraid that I’m not devoted enough to Mary, and simultanesouly afraid I’m too devoted.

 

I’m afraid i’m too flirtatious, but not manly enough. I’m afraid that i am a shell of what it means to be a man even though i love it when she touches my beard.

 

I am restless and in awe at my own ability to choose failure and defeat when sometimes i’ve so clearly reached after success and managed to grasp it. I feel i have fallen in some inexplicable way and become disoriented in the midst of my sudden lucidity about myself and the world.

 

I’m not at all sure what to do with myself, and my once glorious intents have fallen to the wayside as I consider what i mean, and what my existence means.

 

I’m afraid to reach out and just be, i’m afraid to move on, afraid to hold on. I don’t know what the hell to do and i’m everywhere surrounded by fears, and undergoing the sufferings of love, those tender sufferings that wound most truly.

 

My eyes are swollen with restlessness, and my mind is awake in ever increasing streams of inaccessible consciousness.

 

What am I?

 

Who am I?

 

I am not sure how i would even begin to address these questions, or make satisfactory expiation for the blood they require in seeking an answer.

 

I am not as adventurous as I once thought myself to be, and feel as if I carry this unpronounceable weight of duty and devotion.

 

And I feel the part of the unloved child in the midst of all this. This is not a plea for attention, just the reality of me. I feel as if whether i am present or absent makes no difference to most. I feel like I am unlovely and awkward, the boy who wants to be beautiful, the man who longs to be told he is special to someone, somewhere.

 

My relationship with my mom has fallen into a deadening ritual of hellos and goodbyes that are interspersed with short polite withdrawn conversations. She can feel the change in me, i feel it in myself, and I am not aware of if there is a way to make peace. I am questioning my draw towards orthodoxy and wondering if it is out of childish fear, or out of an acknowledgement of truth in fullness that is drawing me.

 

I feel my own death impending, looming, but simultaneously endlessly distant.

 

I hate being the accomplished student. I feel as if I’m nothing else. I wish that Eli was more than just a paper writer, more than a name on the lips of the inquisitive or the disgusted. I wish Eli was the name on the lips of a lover, of a friend calling to check up on me, a name in the back of a mind, at the heart of a pleasant memory. I feel like everywhere i go i leave death and tragedy in my wake, and where it’s not there yet, it will be.

 

I feel overcommitted and under-appreciated, overtaxed and underpaid, mostly aloof even though I long so badly to be connected.

 

As I sit here I make a plea to have a simple life, i wish i could walk away from all of this, say fuck the world and go back to the monastery, back to the simple life.

 

I wish that was my calling. I’m tired of feeling like i’m part of something bigger than myself. I get this feeling like i’m being moved towards something tangible, solid, practical, all-encompassing and “destined” for me. But I hate that feeling sometimes.

 

It’s a wonderful excitement that helps me taste adventure, but I hate feeling this inevitable pull towards something I’d rather walk away from. I would rather just be empty, free of all commitments, devotions, positions, titles.

 

I hate this uncertainty.

 

I wish I was the whispered blessing on a lover’s lips, instead i’m the bane of a middle aged republican history teacher. 

 

I am not what I once was, i’m not an artist anymore. I’m barely a theologian. It all feels like pretend, and I don’t know where the fuck i lost myself, but I feel like i’m barely present here and now.

 

I am hurt and frustrated by unspeakable things that I wish I could take back, change, undo, avoid involvement in, and just never have been a part of. I wish that I could dump all the exteriors and retreat into a life of private faith, just the simple piety of a man trying to live a life as best he can for himself and maybe a family. Farm life in Ireland or something, just raw, and connected to the earth.
For more that I try to be a man, i feel like academics strip that from me. I want simplicity, but the academic circles force me into the realm of speculation on language and definitions, i just want to eat a steak with my hands.

 

Fuck me….

 

I don’t know what i want i’m uncertain on almost every level and feel wretched and terribly lost.

 

I feel like a little boy who doesn’t know how to begin to address coming out of his mother’s skirt and into the world at large.

 

I may be a pillar of boldness on the surface, but my shyness lurks underneath, and I feel the implications of my reservations, of the dignities that I hold onto.

 

I try to let them go, but I feel as if when i do they might be misinterpreted as romantic endeavors. I’m not trying to start anything with anyone. These dignities, these wants, these reservations and self restrictions, these ascetic choices that aren’t beneficial to anyone, these empty formalities that are further away from self actualized manhood than anything else. But I feel as if i look a certain way to the world.

 

I am not trying to fill some sort of empty gap with mockeries and jesting, I wish I had a connection. I wish i could bear my whole heart, and that someone would care enough to listen, to open up too.

 

I’ve hurt too many people along the way, ridiculed too many innocents, broken too many hearts, and confounded too many hopes and aspirations. I am the dark mirror which reflects back only the past, only broken hearts and weeping faces, bleeding eyes and broken places.

 

I am wandering the world in silence and I feel as if I need to scream. No night has ever been this dark, and for some reason though I feel this is one of the darkest nights of my life, I feel simultaneously that this is not the worst i’ve faced though it certainly feels like it in an indirect way. See, I don’t have a manifest panic,it’s more like a resignation to the darkness, that just treats the darkness as a trite formality.

 

i don’t know why that is, because I feel totally abandoned, and maybe this is me being able to meet God in the situation, maybe it’s just numbness, 

 

I can’t be sure.

 

So I wait, and wrestle with these questions in my mind, and let them sweep over me in over growing concentric circles of consciousness.

 

I guess that is all I really have to say, not a pretty poem, or a well crafted internal monologue, just a blurt, with a feeling of emptiness still not sated in the end.

Wounds of Christ

Holy Father, defender of the weak, redeemer and intercessor for the poor, be our shield in the day of battle.

Lord Jesus, mighty one, by the mystery of your great passion, be our crucified God, reminding us of your great suffering.

Holy Spirit, confessor of our intercession and our defense in the day of need, plead with us for the redemption of all things.

Hail Holy Trinity, by your great and ineffable love, teach us also to love.

Have mercy upon me, and upon the whole world.

Holy One, give me wisdom in the face of my trials, that I may lead myself and those around me with your great and everlasting guidance.

Eternal Father this your church, lead your people by your great and merciful love extended to us and to the whole world.

Holy Spirit, affirm the celebration of life and keep us from the snares of destruction, lead us not into the path of blood thirst and oppression, but keep our ways from the path of destruction

Most Merciful God, entreat us to suffer with you, and teach this child to lift up your sacred heart as the foundation of all my doings.

May your sacred heart be my guide, and by your holy wounds, teach me to pray.

May your hands that blessed the little children, nailed to the cross remind me to bless others, who are all your children. May I see in your crucified hands the greatest of mercy, and feel the warmth of your sacred embrace as you lead me to my brethren in mercy. Concerning the wounds oh holy Jesus, teach me to see them as my own, and may my hands bleed with your great and sorrowful passion for the sake of the whole world.

May your crown of thorns remind me to think upon the higher things, to be intentional about pursuing the good of others, and to meditate upon your holy sufferings. May my mind be fixed on your cross, and upon your resurrection, may your great and holy purpose be at the forefront of my mind, even as I remember your cross, and may my eyes look to your wounds for strength.

Wound in the side of Christ, teach me to weep for redemption, teach me to weep for the reconciliation of all things, wash me with this cleansing flow, and let me also become a fount of mercy and grace, a wellspring of your life as others come into contact with me, may they be refreshed by your living waters. Teach me to establish justice in seeking the life of the age to come, and to daily renew my hopes by your great and dolorous passion.

Back of Christ, bearing my sins, the immeasurable weight that is our world’s fallenness, teach me to pray. Holy Christ, with your back torn open by the iniquities of man, teach me obedience, as you yourself suffered as a servant unto the father, so let it be with me as well. Holy Christ, with your aching wounds bleeding for my redemption, and the redemption of all life, thank you for that healing which you bring.

Feet of Christ, teach me to carry the message of peace and support myself upon your holy cross, from which you have ruled the world. Holy Christ, who in your crucifixion made public spectacle of the powers and rulers of this world, teach me to walk in your ways, and against the empire. Feet of Christ, lead me into the path of solidarity, and open my heart by walking in your light. Teach me to love my brother as wholeheartedly as I have loved you, and draw me closer to your everlasting life in this age and in the age to come. Blessed feet, teach me to carry the message of peace, and to make reconciliation a reality, teach me to unite myself with those suffering, and to recognize my own sufferings as well. Blessed feet of Christ, lead me to the feet of Our Lord, where the crucified God stands as both judge and savior of the whole world.

Holy Christ, by your wounds, and the mystery of your sorrowful passion, have mercy upon me and on the whole world.

Holy Christ, by your wounds, and the mystery of your sorrowful passion, have mercy upon me and on the whole world.

Imagination and The task of Suffering

yeah, so here’s another question: why is it difficult to be a human being?

As I sit here and ponder my own existence, i’m confused, beholding myself, beholding, myself. I am indeed a strange loop. higher consciousness built on lower consciousness.

Today I feel like the world is decent, i’m a failure, but i’m ok. i am suffering, i cause suffering, i will die, I cause death. what dogma has ever been able to solve that one?

why can’t we seem to accept the mystery of our own inherent good and evil?

mysterion. theotokos. logos.

a community of words beyond simple meanings, beyond reason alone. as I unlock my imagination and set it loose to tackling the task of existence. Imagination.

Where does wonder come from? Why do we wonder?

we wonder because we are weak, because we are children, not one of us is old, not one of us is ancient, wisdom escapes us. we imagine because it is our gift, we have been granted imagination or stolen it and made it our own. We inherently dream, we have made it our business as creatures to dream beyond ourselves, to imagine.

It is our task to imagine, and when we do not do so, we are miserable and weak, fractured beings. Imagination is. We are.

Ever shall God be.

I’m done.

eli

Alive

To feel great suffering is to be alive in today’s world. For with every great deep and chaotic valley, we know we are truly alive among the sedated masses that stumble in and out of bed obedient to every passing whim of authority, be it the job they serve, the advertisements they attend to, or simply the silent desperation of anesthetics for the soul, to feel pain is to be alive.

In past ages we’ve had pain to deal with, agonies of the soul, quiet meditations to life’s big questions. Today, we sit in an emulsion of sound and lights and flashy colors and distractions, so that when we do contemplate ourselves, we despair. We ache and hurt because we are not at rest, we live like the kings of ages past, and yet have not found happiness, and as Nietzsche pointed out, we are the last man, we are the final ones, who will claim with our sleepy eyes, “We have invented happiness.”

So, know then that when you suffer, and ache, and have riddles to ponder, great questions to overthrow and overcome, when you are tortured, you are alive. You are not sedated. You are empassioned, you are not anesthetized against yourself, you embrace your weary bleeding heart, and carry your heavy cross across the landscape of humanity, calling forth with clarion call, ‘this is the way!’

Have we become so blind? So as not to feel our souls retreating as our distractions flood us with less energy, less life. To contemplate is to be alive, to be conscious of oneself is to be a self, without this, we are shells.

Such heavy passions such as burden the hearts of the weary, these are the things which make us alive. We either live in great tragedy and ask why, or have no tragedy at all and are resigned to sedation which is the worst of all evils that can happen to the human soul.

To suffer is to be aware.

Though this by no means resolves suffering, know that you are alive when you feel, your passions are still beating in your weary heart, better than nihilism of the soul, better than sedation, better than a lack of identity, you are still alive.

And in that life we find our passions steady beating, that solemn agony.

It still echoes across our hearts and minds, in the visions of our memories, in the hearts of all children, the knowledge that suffering is within us all.

We are alive in this, and as we near that great consuming fire, we find that we are all alone, outside the walls of normality, outside the jurisdiction of sedation, outside the facets and boundaries of acceptable. We are not acceptable, we are prophets. We are not the joyous announcers of salvation, but the harbingers of awareness, bringing suffering to the forefront of our minds, in order to answer the question which has never been answered successfully. From Buddha to Jesus, to the New Age and beyond, no one can answer.

The Outside is Within.

History After the Gospel

Perspectives on Suffering and the Gospel in Reality

The Spirit of God lives within us. How often do we hear that, among my Charismatic friends that entails, speaking in tongues and miracles, but do we really consider the idea? There is a wholly other triune person, living within our very being, having its essence in and alongside with our essence. Developing us in relation to Himself. The power of the Spirit is something you will hear about in just about any Charismatic church, about how God empowers us with a force we must release in order to make it effective. But that reduces and subjects the role of the Spirit to an impersonal power that indwells us, not a triune person that has the power and thus grants it to us from within. The Spirit of God is not just impersonal power that we must release, and I feel as if this is not treated fairly in circles I have been in.

We do not ask the Spirit to guide us from within except as the function of a voice, not as a whole person unto himself that is simultaneously without and within us. To be with God is to be in communion with God by the Spirit. We must interact with the person of the Spirit to be with God. The Eucharist points excellently to the indwelling nature of Christ within us. As we ingest the bread and the wine, the body and blood we experience grace, and such grace is experienced from within. Why is this? Because in the same manner the Spirit which is a person and not a force as bread and wine represent the actual Christ, conveys grace to us. The Eucharist is a symbol of our reception of Christ and the Spirit, by which we know the communion we need necessarily shapes and makes our being.

Thus our identity is again, a relation, between ourselves and the Spirit which while both remain separate from each other are joined to each other, as when in marriage the wife and husband to not become a single entity of being with both sex organs and a single consciousness but rather find the fullness of identity in relation to the other, so we too must find our being in relation to God. We do not become one with God because human marriage is the greatest analogy of that which should happen to us, we should be joined in intimate communion, aware of our being that participates in the being of another, but at the same time we are fully ourselves. The modern agenda of individual liberation form everything that is other in pursuit of authentic identity has only succeeded to remove itself from authentic identity. Identity, in every human relation is found in terms of the other.

What about mystics, and people trapped in desert places by themselves, are they less of people? Yes, and no. Yes they do not have the relationality that others in and amongst people. Thus they lack a vital element of humanness. But no, because there is still something other when we are all alone. There is the ever enduring and personal presence of the Spirit who is everywhere, and with everything, but there is also the world. The world is something other, and in terms of it also we come to know ourselves. We are always in the presence of something other, though whether we choose to engage it or not is our choice.

Relating to the other can bring us hope. In terms of the real spirit which lives with us it can bring us great comfort and hope to know the other. Finding ourselves comfortable in relations cam bring us great personal hope at the constant realization that we are not alone. But there are times when we are distraught and fraught with peril and despair at the sight of reality, but this is when we need to find hope and can find hope. Our hope is in Christ, and in his person, as the one who brings us hope.

We need hope, it is necessary to our existence. As Christians, we should hold to a personal revelation and expectation of the hope that we await to reveal itself. We need a personal expectation of the gospel that dwells among us. The gospel needs to have a personal and real presence in our lives and beings. Without such a life we are empty and have no hope at all. the gospel and its message need to dwell among us. a realization of the impending redemption of all things should live in our minds and have a real presence in our lives and actions.

The gospel is among us, its presence is known in our lives by the hope that we carry within ourselves. The gospel is not abstract ideals but is known as a personal and living reality. THe gospel must have its presence among us necessarily, because it like us is in the world but not of the world, influencing the world. We cannot forget the power of the good news of the kingdom of God that dwells among us as more than just the fact that we can now go to church and fit in with “the people of the pews.” Really, The power of the gospel is that it has personal power and relevance to every believer the world around.

In the midst of our suffering, we can look back on history and see that something has happened in history which has been done in our behalf. The New Testament writers witnessed something powerful and unique in the person of Jesus beyond just teachings or a god way of living. They saw something personally significant in his resurrection that allowed them to know that Jesus was with them in their lives.

The gospel is still among us today, in our hearts, as a reality beyond just intellectual or even intuitive assent. It is a reality, a powerful reality that carries presence, beyond just the words and ideas around which we shape our language about the gospel. The gospel’s purpose is to be among the people as a kerygmatic reality, to be among the people in proclamative presence. As we approach the valleys of our lives and find ourselves in them, we can acknowledge that we are not alone, that our hope is not in ourselves or in history, not in politics, not in emotional good feelings, not in self help, not in personal eternity after this life, but in the cosmic reconciliation of all things including but not limited to ourselves, our hope is in the true and living God. Our hope is found in the presence of the one who has declared from the beginning that we shall be saved. Our hope lies in the reality of a good and beneficial God who has personal redemption in mind for each of us.

Our hope is not idealism, we do not tell ourselves that the world is getting better and better without any alis, nor do we tell ourselves that it is so damned that it only serves to be destroyed. Our hope is that the God we see revealed in the person of Jesus Christ is among us, and living within and through us to indwell the world with His presence and Spirit. The gospel, is among us, it is in the air, in the words we speak, in our breath, in the grass and the trees, whispers of it can be heard in the mountains, and in the valleys, in the fire and in the water, in the trees. Creation knows something is coming, we know something is coming, yet is already among us beginning to change things within us, beginning to usher us into a new reality.

Our hope is not that Jesus would come back and take us out of the world,but that we would be kept in the world but kept from evil. We await not the destruction at the end of the age, but the redemption that is already breaking forth in each of our lives to appear suddenly and like a forest breaking through a city and transforming it, so to see the new heavens and new earth break forth out of this present reality and change, not only the world, but everything. The gospel is among us, it lives in our fingertips, in our emotions, in our suffering, in our triumphs.

The message of the gospel is not words alone but that which indwells the words and gives them life, that which lives among us in power and might, the very Spirit of the Living God. The spirit lives within us, we have a wholly transcendent Other, fully within ourselves as Christians. We have a completely different being not just upon us, but within us, working out the same resurrection that was worked out in Christ. This is the gospel in our midst: That the Spirit that omnipresently inhabits all things, even the very depths of Sheol as the psalmist says, is within us working through us and an actual presence for our lives. The gospel is a reality, the cross which is its center is our center.

As we face discouragement and labors, trials and temptations let us remember that something real and true happened to us because of Jesus Christ, and that because of this something true that has happened in history so too our history has a purpose. Divine history did not culminate in the incarnation, there is purpose to this life, even after the ascension of Jesus. History still has a purpose because we will be transformed at the last, and all those things which have been used in labor unto God will be tested. Everything we have set to use will be appropriated by the kingdom, and redelivered into our hands so that we can work out in the new heavens and earth the will of God as a present reality with those faculties, members and parts of ourselves that have been dedicated unto righteousness.

God’s will is to appropriate all that we can offer, and fill it with his presence as wine fills a chalice. The wine is not the chalice, nor does the wine become the chalice, rather creation is built to house God’s presence among his creatures and to be filled with his love, but still individual from and separate from.

Hope then takes this form, we know that the world we live in was created as “very good” and while fallen continues to have purpose, and that purpose is to be redeemed unto God through the gospel which has a real and active presence not merely as language or proclamation but as a reality unto itself made so by the Spirit.

History after the incarnation matters because God is going to use everything that has been put into his trust to extend his kingdom over all the earth. Our talents and “members” will be transformed and enhanced. Our talents will be renewed,a nd life itself will be completely different, yet altogether, not just a spiritual detachment but a grounding in this world, which needs the redempton that in Christ, we too can offer it.

Thus we can conclude that while we acknowledge and not blindly or arbitrarily the suffering that plagues the world, we look to God to be the solution to those problems, we must face the horrors of reality as we see them. There are those who today are raped, tortured, sold into slavery and killed, today in the world, parents kill children and children kill teachers, elders, each other as well. Violence takes place over inches and miles of land, children step on land mines, people lose limbs in combat, and female children are tossed aside into the garbage. These are realities that we do not ignore, push aside or turn away from.

You must hold yourself in front of them until it hurts, until your heart breaks with sorrow, until you cannot remember yourself anymore and all that exists is the suffering of humanity. You must feel every beating upon the skin of a scared and tormented housewife, every beating at the hands of a drunken father, every betrayal for the sake of material gain, every ounce of blood shed in the name of ideas. But once you have reached that place, it is not yours to remain there. To feel these things is to know the heart of God, but knowing alone is not ours. Once there, if we remain we will be overcome by distress and despair, and fall into a vulgar pessimism about life and God. When really our purpose is to realize these things are not culpable to God though we should wrestle with the reality of an omnipotent God allowing such suffering.

To know God is to wrestle with Him, and to ask the hard questions, not without reverence, but also not without really pressing to know why. We must be as Abraham and Moses, and ask the Father, why things are not getting better. We must be as Jesus and pray to the Father that the kingdom would come. We must live in awareness of the Spirit among us and in us and thus beg the hard questions of God. The problem of evil is no less complicated now than when it was first indicated by the first human thought that there was a real evil in the world. To truly know God is to beg the difficult questions and honestly expect an answer, not just passively submit mindlessly. To know God requires reverence, and honor that is due among friends, but does not require us to mindlessly accept things we do not understand.

To know God, is also to know grace, in the face of things we cannot comprehend, and then to accept in loving kindness that things are still being revealed to us in measures. To know God is to be gracious unto Him, as unto a lover. God is a reality, not a joke, not something we consent to, not an abstract person, but a person as real as your or I, as real as the lover in our marriage bed, as real as the children you have, as real as the friends you truly know from heart to heart.

God is not an empty idea, but a person, as we are people, this is known in Jesus Christ. God is Jesus, and therefore God has personhood. We cannot live with abstracts anymore, neither could the New Testament writers. They did not say Jesus represented God, they prayed to Him as God. God is personal, not impersonal, present in reality by the Spirit, and immanently concerned for us all.

We need to remember that grace is real. That the forgiveness of sins is not a divine joke, and that the reconciliation of all things is not going to turn out to be the greatest practical joke in all history. Rather, we need to remember that grace that is extended to us by the Lord, and remember that we are all called to inherit such a grace. We are all made to be filled with God’s presence and to hope in the eventual and impending reconciliation of all things. We are not hopeless idealists, but realistically concerned with God’s action in the world as a reconciler, eagerly urging on the redemption which has begun in us the people of God, and will break forth suddenly to redeem all things.

I hope this has made some sense somewhere, and that in reading these words something has come alive within you.