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Encountering God

This is the introduction to an essay I’m working on entitled “Worshipful Ostentation as a Theological Methodology”

“The Lord is my light and my salvation;
Whom shall I fear?
The Lord is the stronghold of my life;
Of whom shall I be afraid?”
- Psalm 27: 1

It is in the contempletive vacancy of mind, ever-reaching into the infinite, never clenching or grasping, but always open and swimming deeper with religious impulse into the darkness of divine waters – where we are incapable of an idolatrous pollution of ideas because we cannot stain what we cannot reach – that there, amidst the formlessness and void of thought, the presence of God resides; for in the temple of our bodies, this, the rational absence of ideas, is our Holy of Holies. And it is as we lean into this region of our conscious experience where no idea has settled in and we reach into the vast expanse of the infinite that there we encounter in the ground of our being, Being itself, and in so doing, falling in awe of a “Beauty ever ancient, ever new,” not that we grasp God, but that we humbly become aware of being held by Him as we eternally rest in Him. This is how we come to know God; becoming aware of being held, receiving divine Grace, resting in Him, and leaning into the intimacy of His presence. This knowledge, however, is never the achievement of mere accurate theology but the consequence of a divine encounter mediated through the personal pressing into of empty conditions and deconstructed expectations, the stripping away of preconceived notions concerning the way things ought to be. In this way, speaking of God (in theology, preaching, prophecy, singing, etc.) is to be best understood, less in terms of the construction of a permanent and static theory about God and more in terms of the evolutionary and dynamic witnessing of God, and in this way, it is never that our words define God as much as they point towards Him by means of worshipful ostentation.

Live in community? Yes.
Share resources? Yes.
How?

I don’t think this means throw out our resources to the world to be wasted. I think it means, when you have a group of people on the same page, devoted to the same goal…you share your resources, to empower each other to collectively and mutually accomplish that end.

This requires good judgment in determining with whom to share our resources. It is not loving to empower or enable foolishness. If my brother/sister is squandering their money, I will not give them more – not because I don’t love them, on the contrary, it is because I love them that I do not want to enable them to continue living foolishly. Whence they grow wise, I will empower them with all the resources I have.

Duty of Loyalty

Outside Benefits – An agent may not receive profits unless the principal knows and approves
Confidential Information – Agents can neither disclose nor use for their own benefit any confidential information they acquire during their agency
Competition with Principal – Agents are not allowed to compete with their principal in any matter within the scope of the agency business
Conflict of Interest between Two Principals – Unless otherwise agreed, an agent may not act for two principals whose interests conflict
Secretly Dealing with the Principal – If a principal hires an agent to arrange a transaction, the agent may not become a party to the transaction without the principal’s permission
Appropriate Behavior – An agent may not engage in inappropriate behavior that reflects badly on the principal

Earlier today I was eating brunch in the dining commons (DC) with some friends. It wasn’t the most satisfying food, I must say – raisin bran, tuna, broccoli soup, grilled cheese on sourdough, a green apple and water (I’ll admit, I felt sick afterwards). So why didn’t I make a ham or turkey sandwich, you might ask, or grab my routinely enjoyed double grilled chicken breast on wheat – no cheese w/ bbq sauce (a meal I’ve had almost every day in the DC since freshman year)? The reason wasn’t because these meals weren’t available, but rather, because I had recently discovered something that had ignorantly (and naively) been completely unknown to me.

1. The majority of our pork, bacon, ham, turkey, chicken, beef, steak (all of it) are made available to us through mass production. How does one mass produce a living creature? Apparently, the same way one would mass produce a non-living product…
animal cruelty1
animal cruelty2

2. The blatant disregard for life disturbs me immensely. Living creatures spend their entire lives in two feet of cemented, caged space w/ food thrown on top of them, living in their own feces, without allowing for their biology to flourish as they were intended to, only to be let out for slaughter. Hundreds of thousands of healthy male chicks are merely thrown into trash barrels, (as seen below) until they suffocate and die. The list of callous treatment of animals goes on…
animal cruelty3
animal cruelty

I’m not against eating meat as of yet. I am not disgusted by the concept of eating steak…far from it :-) One of my favorite meals is a medium-rare filet mignon with rosemary potatoes and corn on the cob – I salivate at the image in my mind. However, the way in which we treat the animals we eat, while they do live, is entirely relevant because it declares how we are representing God on this earth.

Christ cooked up some fish for breakfast for his disciples after he resurrected. He was also the one who taught Peter how to catch more fish. Remember? The nets were breaking, there were so many fish. The God of life and creativity killed fish? What? Yes, and he also killed people (See Exodus 12:29-32, 14:26-30, 32:27, and much, much more) And not just in the Old Testament (See Acts 5). He also ordered the killing of hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of living creatures to be slaughtered in the name of sacrifice (or even simply to have their blood painted on a door – See Exodus 12:21-23). I think we have a perverted view of physical death…it’s not that big of a deal. Perhaps due to our “civilized” environment, so often raised under the illusion of some kind of entitlement to long life as if that’s the point to all this, we are overly sensitive to death. I hear mothers saying that they don’t want to expose their children to death at too young an age. Really? Because, all around the world there are three year olds whose grandparents die, their friends die and it’s understood as a part of this world. Crying over the death of a goldfish illuminates ignorance to the process of life. Life. Death. It is a cycle. It is not whether something lives or dies that matters, but how it lives and how it dies.

I’m not – at least for now – advocating against the slaughter of animals for food. I am advocating against relating with animals as nothing more than mere units of consumption – as an industrial supply for an obese, consumerist demand. It is not a repulsion against the physical death of an animal but a repulsion against a spiritual death in our relationship with creation that makes for a rather ugly view of humanity’s assumption of responsibility for creation.

In Spanish the way we would designate masculine and feminine nouns is usually with the suffix “-o” or “-a.” So, “un esposo” is a husband and “una esposa” is a wife. Hebrew is similar. To make a noun feminine one would add “-ah” to the end of the word. So for example, “ish” is “man/husband” and “ishah” is “woman/wife”. “Sus” is “horse” and “Susah” is “mare”.

אדמ “Adam” is “mankind/humanity” and אדמה “Adamah” is “ground/earth”.

Just as woman came from the rib of man, so אדמ came from the dust of אדמה. In creation, we – as humanity – have been made as the gendered counterpart to the earth. As a husband is to his wife, so humanity is to the earth. How have we been doing? What is the first job that God gives to man? “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

I do think that there is an argument to be made for straight vegetarianism as the utopian ideal since God then follows this command with saying essentially “and you have the plants for food”. But I’m putting this point for a later discussion, (especially since it’s hard to get around the fact that Christ seemed to have no problem with cooking fish for brunch) but at least for now let us agree that the delegated responsibility that we have to care for creation stems out of this command. To have dominion and to subdue does not mean to rape, to extort, to exploit, to abuse or to objectify creation as units of consumption. How does God have dominion over us? How does he subdue us? Let us do likewise.

This was both the letter Austin Crowder wrote to me and my response:
I just brought this up in theology class and a question in response to my statement had me at a loss for words. In our conversation in the DC. you had mentioned, which seems to me to be appropriate, that it is not our place to ask, what will allow us to go to heaven, who is going to heaven, ex) is babtism required to go to heaven? etc. its not the right question to ask is this or that going to heaven?
the question posed is, then what question do we ask?
just wondering your insight.
thanks so much bro!
Austin

Response: Hey Austin, I love your quest for truth…keep asking. Well what questions did Jesus ask? What seemed to be foremost on His mind? To me, I see him preeminently concerned with whether we are loving our enemies our neighbors, whether we are loving God; and thereby living in His Kingdom. The question I would ask is not whether my brother is going somewhere after he dies (an answer only God knows) as much as whether my brother is living in the Kingdom of God while he does live? Is he forgiving? Is he showing grace? Is he serving? Is his life open and turned outwards towards others? In other words, the question is whether someone is walking in life or death. Now, this is not to say that the purpose to life is reduced to virtue. The purpose to life is to glorify God, to love him and others. Christ taught, “this is eternal life, to know the Father and the Son whom He sent.” We come to know whether someone knows the Father by ourselves knowing the Father and seeing him in our brothers and sisters, what does he look like? He looks like love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, self-control. We must also be careful not to prejudge what these things look like. A smiling person is not necessarily full of joy. A bible-reading monk is not necessarily faithful. A nun is not necessarily good. A homeless shelter is not necessarily kind…we come to truly know the fruit of each other by coming to know each other more. Which means that the first question we ask when approaching someone we don’t know is not: “Are you going to heaven? Do you affirm Christian tenants?” but “Who are you and what do you love?” For through the latter question we come to know their spirit which is deeper than the appearance of their actions. To know someone’s deeds, it is not enough to see them or hear about them…we must know the doer of the deeds for what we do is an expression of who we are – and that is what is of ultimate concern.

Grace and Peace,
Austin

I was once just a kid told some truth. I believed the truth and I was patted on the back for it, now I’m ridiculed, mocked and persecuted for holding onto it. What happened in 19 years, because I know the truth didn’t change?

When once I was young, the gem shone through my eyes, smile and dance. Then they came with their swords and spears overthrowing the edifice of my mind with shouting, anger and corruption. I have been fighting under the cloud of this oppression. Then she came, carrying with her the light of O’Ryan in her belt and with her laugh bringing the sun’s rays to this dark land. I have been saved by her, but she tells me that I have been saved by the one who gave her this light. Will I dance again? Will I smile? What power lies latent in this light? Will she kiss me and fill me with its power and life?

Discernment

Even a fool is able to discern extreme circumstances. A wise person is one who can discern through the everyday.

Even a fool can speak today of slavery as injustice. A wise person can speak of hatred anywhere it exists as just as deep and profound an injustice as that of slavery, murder of the innocent and any other extreme.

Darkness is darkness, the apparent dimness of daily life is an illusion of degree that must infuriate our divine sympathies. Any shade of grey, any slight dimming of the present situation from the luminous shine of heaven’s glory is a tragic pollution of human possibility by divine grace. The Kingdom of God is at hand, no hint of sin may be permitted. May our vision of justice and righteousness be so highly-grained, so resolutely focused unto that possibility that even the slightest deviation from that end is rendered an unacceptable tragedy to which we must never become comfortable or well-adjusted.

Four young men were led to the base of a cold, gray mountain and told to take on a journey to the mountain’s peak, which was hidden above the clouds.

The first man was named Peter. He looked up and could not see this alleged “mountain peak” and so stared at the highest visible end – about 900 feet he reckoned. He figured that he’d do what he reasonably could (which seemed to be a higher aim than most other men). After much hard work, energy and sweat he hiked the distance and so succeeded to finish the intense trail of 900 feet and yet rested unsatisfied with the journey, but eventually convinced himself that this was the best any man could do or reasonably hope to do. He (fearing the possible vanity of his journey’s worth) eventually found satisfaction by comparing his achievement to the other three men and so perceived his life to be competitively the best of all three other options.

The second man, whose name was Eckhart, looked up into where the mountain entered the cloud’s covering and reveled with childlike admiration in the impossibly high feat, and overwhelmed with the immensity of the mountain’s ascension, he proceeded to write poetry and sing songs about how wonderful reaching its peak would be – yet he never left the place he stood.

He laughed at the small vision of Peter as, he claimed, Peter was unable to perceive the grandeur or imagine the beauty of the mountain’s peak, of what lies beyond the clouds. He thought: Peter is limiting his perspective to what he could see, to what was perceived as “practical” when all he has accomplished has been the vanity of 900 feet coupled with a shriveled vision of possibility.

Yet respectively, Peter laughed at Eckhart for his laziness, evidenced in his immobility, as he thought: This man is probably insecure that he isn’t capable of going as far as I’ve gone (for I am stronger than he is, and surely he is aware of this) and so he sits paralyzed in a dream-world of imagination, trying to cope with his insecurity and weakness, trying to satisfy his ego by accusing me of not having this foolish idealistic vision of a “mountain peak” that he himself can’t see and doesn’t know about and evidently isn’t foolish enough to authentically even pursue.

The third man, whose name was Richard, laughed at the foolishness of the two, speaking of the uphill journey of 900 feet as a fool’s errand of vain exhaustion and the second man’s ranting about some “mountain’s peak beyond the clouds” as pointless, ignorant and absurd. So he turned his back to the mountain and walked down into the valley for the more enjoyable path. The journey was much easier but as he soon found, this path led him to where the wolves awaited to devour him. To which both men thought: what a fool to seek the easier trail only to be devoured by wolves.

The fourth man fixed his vision toward the mountain’s top, something he could not see yet knew to be his end, whatever it was. He lowered his eyes to the visible path only to see the branches and stones which would trip him along the way, so as to walk over and around the obstacles as they appeared – but always looking into the clouds so as to stay on the path which would lead him into them. This man grew tired yet he never ceased to pursue the unknown, yet anticipated, mountain’s peak beyond the clouds. However, as he came to the clouds, he realized he could not see by himself, he needed others to walk with him through the clouds, while alone he would be lost, with many eyes the collection of limited visions could combine to see a path that leads through the fog. So he tried to convince the other two to follow him.

Peter thought of this man, as he passed into the clouds: I don’t understand where he thinks he’s going, what a fool to pursue what neither he nor anybody else knows or sees.

Eckhart thought: Ah, look at him stare down at the ground so often – his momentary glances up to the clouds are only evidence of a conflicted mind, battling between the brilliant image of the mountain’s top beyond those clouds and the corrupted obsession he has with his perception of practicality.

Yet, amidst the many criticisms, the fourth man convinced Peter to trust that there was something to be found by walking through the fog; and convinced Eckhart that steps up the hill had to be made and it wasn’t impossible to reach the summit. Together, with cooperative vision, they made their way into the fog. The journey grew so long and tiresome that there came a point where they had to make the choice to either turn around and return to the land they knew or else pursue the land they didn’t know and say, “We will walk upward, always upward, so as to either break through this fog or die trying”.

They chose the latter. Whether before or after death, they found themselves living in a place Peter had never imagined and Eckhart had only spoken of with underestimated song and prose but had never, until persuaded, moved towards. They lived above the clouds, filled with the divine warmth of the silent setting sun as it enflamed with golden hue, an earth which reflected the glory of transcendence, a sea which zealously applauded their end and a sky which welcomed them home – for such life is reserved for those who pursue with all their heart, mind and soul an end they cannot see.

For my Birthday

http://www.mycharitywater.org/westmont

I’m turning 22. I’m asking for $22 to go towards building sustainable wells for clean drinking water.

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