Since the time in ninth grade when my faith came alive for me, I’ve wanted to share it with others. And sometimes as I’ve tried to do so, a certain brittleness has come up - a sense that this wasn’t an area of interest to my conversation partner. The response would bewilder me, though I came to expect it. I couldn’t understand why someone wouldn’t want to hear about this great thing I had to offer. Lately I’m looking at it from a different perspective. I see several obvious reasons why these past communications were brittle and awkward.
First is the problem of trying to tell about something: As I’ve mentioned, feeling the lift of God’s presence is much like flying. All of my being is on a bright and moving edge; I am illumined; I feel myself at the cambium, the growing place where all things unfold in the fresh newness of being. But to share this with someone else, they have to feel it. They have to experience God’s love, with its assurance that nothing they’ve ever worried about has ever mattered, that they have always been beloved beyond imagining, which takes care of everything. Mere words, however inspired, don’t bring this about.
Second are the limits to my own life proof: Christian Scientists are taught to operate from a different paradigm from the one assumed by popular culture. It is a paradigm in which perfection is the starting point, goodness is substance, and bad things are considered insubstantial, and are expected to fall away. We operate from that standpoint when our experience corroborates that – when we live at the point of healing. But there is a question of how I am to be when I find myself waiting for understanding – waiting for the clarity which shows itself as healing. I think there is a need to be very humble and quiet in my faith. I need to be watchful that the starting point of perfection doesn’t devolve into perfectionism, in which, though I don’t feel myself perfect, I feel I should be, and expect others to be. This falls into the posturing and judging, the precarious maintaining of facades, so familiar to social-climbing America and so antithetical to Christ.
Related to that is a problem of language: When speaking of a different paradigm, it’s easy to convey the wrong impression. Perfection in Christ can sound like perfectionism; the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free can sound like a burdensome responsibility. This problem is even greater when I cease to know what I’m talking about – when my words get ahead of my experience and I speak from my notion of the theory instead of the understanding only found in love.
Finally, there’s the question of relationship: I guess I assumed that it would be good and helpful to others for me to impart inspiration, or at least information, in my communications. What I didn’t account for is that my desire to be the giver left others in the role of people who needed my help. Often, as it turns out, people don’t appreciate being cast in that role. So if I come along telling them that their lives will be much better if they only allow themselves to be moved by my insight and wisdom, or if they adopt aspects of my faith, I shouldn’t be surprised if they don’t respond with great enthusiasm.
So what does this all indicate? Even within my own faith I have felt the resistance to the things others resist. I, too, turn away from mere words and crave the authentic experience, the overwhelming sense of the God presence, that makes many words unnecessary, and makes the ones that are spoken perfect. It’s useful to start noticing what doesn’t work so I can stop trying to do it. It’s even more important to begin collecting the moments of perfect love that define everything I want to have and be. Recently, facing the need to comfort a loved one, I found myself choosing not to say thought after thought that came to mind. I felt that words of instruction, however insightful, would fall flat, and that even words of encouragement must not contradict his feelings. I needed to keep my own thought in the place of pure love. No words that strayed from this could be any use at all. What I shared was not important. What mattered was that the solid Love that holds the whole world together be felt by both of us. Listening in this way allowed the needed comfort to come in. It was conveyed in touch more than in words – touch guided by love.
Words about Christian Science are a mere shell of what I value. They are a shell that can be brittle, and that can keep the glorious essence from shining forth. By insisting to myself that I stay centered in truth, I can begin to break free of that shell. No longer do I feel the need to share the great truth that I have found with others. Instead, through my faith I can see the light that they are already shining. My sharing can be in appreciating what they are. Then it will be their words as much as mine that bring inspiration.
Thursday, August 30, 2007
Friday, August 10, 2007
Feels like Flying
Ever since I was very little, I’ve had the sense that I know the feeling of free flight, and have longed for it. I have flown in dreams from time to time, and always awake from such dreams with a deep sense of well-being.
When my being grasps for a moment the wonderful law of goodness, it feels like flying. There’s the same sense of expansiveness, of filling with more joy than my lungs can hold, of hope soaring – a buoyancy behind my chest and beneath my throat. There is power, belonging, and coming home – a sense of the rightness of this, and that it has always been part of me. It also feels like a huge new world to explore. In those moments my questions are gone – questions of how I am to improve, what my course of growth should be, how I’ll ever get there (wherever “there” might be). For I am conscious of the rightness of here and now.
My sister said this morning, “We’re taught that our thoughts determine our experience, right?” I said, “We’re taught that, but I’m not sure it’s right.” I told her of a book I had been looking at, on the Sermon on the Mount, which said it would bring out the Science of Christianity by explicating the meaning of those teachings. But it didn’t mention Mrs. Eddy anywhere, or even Christian Science. I soon determined that what it said may have been along the lines of what I was taught as a child, but also that those lines would never get one to the flying place, never bring healing, and so would lead seekers awry.
The problem is that it shares the underlying world view of the great body of self-help instruction to be found in our society. It assumes that there is something wrong with us, or at least something that can be improved upon, and that if we adopt this course of discipline and work hard at it, we can make ourselves better.
In this paradigm, God is not the moving and shaping force in our lives, our creator and determiner, the law which governs us. At best, God in this scenario is a judge, someone whose favor we might eventually earn if we are good enough. This is not the God that Jesus taught when he said “the kingdom of God is within you”, “I and my Father are one”, and “Our Father, which art in heaven.”
When I have been in the self-help paradigm, I’ve found it hard to love, much as I wanted to, much as I thought it would make me a better person to do so. I was too busy being anxious about myself, how I was doing, how I was progressing in my self-help program. The love that Love teaches is a celebration of universal oneness. It is a joy that springs forth in the contemplation of others, an exaltation at their presence and all the unique qualities of their being. It rides in the deep confidence of being well-loved, of belonging, of being home. It feels like flying.
It is an interesting project to steadily untangle myself from the self-help view of life and to embrace, more and more, the love that is the law of Life. The benefit is opening up those soaring spaces, where the fabric of my world view rips open and my whole vision fills with light.
When my being grasps for a moment the wonderful law of goodness, it feels like flying. There’s the same sense of expansiveness, of filling with more joy than my lungs can hold, of hope soaring – a buoyancy behind my chest and beneath my throat. There is power, belonging, and coming home – a sense of the rightness of this, and that it has always been part of me. It also feels like a huge new world to explore. In those moments my questions are gone – questions of how I am to improve, what my course of growth should be, how I’ll ever get there (wherever “there” might be). For I am conscious of the rightness of here and now.
My sister said this morning, “We’re taught that our thoughts determine our experience, right?” I said, “We’re taught that, but I’m not sure it’s right.” I told her of a book I had been looking at, on the Sermon on the Mount, which said it would bring out the Science of Christianity by explicating the meaning of those teachings. But it didn’t mention Mrs. Eddy anywhere, or even Christian Science. I soon determined that what it said may have been along the lines of what I was taught as a child, but also that those lines would never get one to the flying place, never bring healing, and so would lead seekers awry.
The problem is that it shares the underlying world view of the great body of self-help instruction to be found in our society. It assumes that there is something wrong with us, or at least something that can be improved upon, and that if we adopt this course of discipline and work hard at it, we can make ourselves better.
In this paradigm, God is not the moving and shaping force in our lives, our creator and determiner, the law which governs us. At best, God in this scenario is a judge, someone whose favor we might eventually earn if we are good enough. This is not the God that Jesus taught when he said “the kingdom of God is within you”, “I and my Father are one”, and “Our Father, which art in heaven.”
When I have been in the self-help paradigm, I’ve found it hard to love, much as I wanted to, much as I thought it would make me a better person to do so. I was too busy being anxious about myself, how I was doing, how I was progressing in my self-help program. The love that Love teaches is a celebration of universal oneness. It is a joy that springs forth in the contemplation of others, an exaltation at their presence and all the unique qualities of their being. It rides in the deep confidence of being well-loved, of belonging, of being home. It feels like flying.
It is an interesting project to steadily untangle myself from the self-help view of life and to embrace, more and more, the love that is the law of Life. The benefit is opening up those soaring spaces, where the fabric of my world view rips open and my whole vision fills with light.
Thursday, August 2, 2007
Saying Yes
Last weekend I went to Ocean Shores with my husband, who was hired to do a drum circle for participants in a motorcycle rally, the Harley Davidson Surf and Sun Run. As we drove south and west we saw more and more motorcycles. Black leather vests and chaps, hair sheaths, tattoos. Shortly after we got there, we went to a place for pizza. The two couples that were sitting together in the back room where we went might not have been part of the rally, but they were sympathetic to it. One woman referred to the rush she got from feeling the rumble of the motors. What they said to us was, “Are you sure you want to be in this room with us? There are twelve of us, and the kids greatly outnumber the grown-ups.”
I was sure I did. This was the room where you could see the sky, and besides, I found myself looking forward to the experience of sharing the room with this group. I soon discerned that most of the kids were occupied in the video arcade room. The little ones, aged maybe 4-7, kept coming back in a steady trickle for quarters, which several of the adults were benevolently dispensing. Then they were ordering pizza, and pop by the pitcherfull. Though soda pop and video games would not have topped my list as things that were wholesome for kids, my sense here was that they would do no harm. I felt that whatever the items were, the substantial thing was the saying yes. I could feel those yeses going deep into the being of those kids, giving them depth and confidence, providing a foundation from which they could grow tall and strong. Later there was an incident in which one of the kids had to be disciplined. The discipline was measured, loving, and offered a clear path back to acceptance in the group, with hugs all around.
It was a new clarification of substance for me. In my efforts to be a good mom, I have tried to steer my kids towards what’s good. Here I saw a clear indication that in steering kids towards what I think is good in terms of activities and things to consume, I might be missing the key point – the need to say yes to their being, regardless of the material trappings. Just as my whole being said yes to this group of families at the pizza place, just as it said yes to all the black-leather clad people at the Harley Davidson rally, I began to feel that my whole purpose, with all my interactions, must be to say yes.
I was telling this story to my sister, and she said that she and her daughter had been talking about the same thing. She said saying no was like trying to back up over the spikes at the rental car place. It doesn’t achieve what you want – you have to go around another way. Her daughter corroborated by pointing out that in improv theater, one of the cardinal rules is that you can’t say no. You always say yes to whatever idea someone else presents, and then you can try to turn it in whatever way comes to mind.
Three of my entries in this blog so far have had titles beginning with “Christ says yes.” It makes sense to me that, in following Christ, I find more and more ways in my own life to do the same.
I was sure I did. This was the room where you could see the sky, and besides, I found myself looking forward to the experience of sharing the room with this group. I soon discerned that most of the kids were occupied in the video arcade room. The little ones, aged maybe 4-7, kept coming back in a steady trickle for quarters, which several of the adults were benevolently dispensing. Then they were ordering pizza, and pop by the pitcherfull. Though soda pop and video games would not have topped my list as things that were wholesome for kids, my sense here was that they would do no harm. I felt that whatever the items were, the substantial thing was the saying yes. I could feel those yeses going deep into the being of those kids, giving them depth and confidence, providing a foundation from which they could grow tall and strong. Later there was an incident in which one of the kids had to be disciplined. The discipline was measured, loving, and offered a clear path back to acceptance in the group, with hugs all around.
It was a new clarification of substance for me. In my efforts to be a good mom, I have tried to steer my kids towards what’s good. Here I saw a clear indication that in steering kids towards what I think is good in terms of activities and things to consume, I might be missing the key point – the need to say yes to their being, regardless of the material trappings. Just as my whole being said yes to this group of families at the pizza place, just as it said yes to all the black-leather clad people at the Harley Davidson rally, I began to feel that my whole purpose, with all my interactions, must be to say yes.
I was telling this story to my sister, and she said that she and her daughter had been talking about the same thing. She said saying no was like trying to back up over the spikes at the rental car place. It doesn’t achieve what you want – you have to go around another way. Her daughter corroborated by pointing out that in improv theater, one of the cardinal rules is that you can’t say no. You always say yes to whatever idea someone else presents, and then you can try to turn it in whatever way comes to mind.
Three of my entries in this blog so far have had titles beginning with “Christ says yes.” It makes sense to me that, in following Christ, I find more and more ways in my own life to do the same.
Saturday, July 28, 2007
Giving and Receiving – the divine equilibrium of Spirit
Yesterday a friend shared an experience that had been upsetting to her. She spent a weekend with two other friends – a thing they had done before and which she had happily anticipated. But one of the friends acted differently this time, becoming bossy and controlling, “taking over the whole thing.” This included preparing all kinds of delicious food, but my friend said, “it was all about her.” Apparently she left no room for the normal breathing of relationships, for other people to express what they wanted, to have a say about what was being done, to give their gifts to the group.
I reflected to my friend that I think I’ve been like that friend at times. I had ideas about what things meant and how to do things, and I thought I was being interesting and helpful to share them. On one occasion (when I was once again sharing with the other English teachers how I had approached a certain lesson) I saw a look of unmasked distaste on the face of one of the teachers. But I couldn’t fathom why, and it seemed I couldn’t stop myself from “being helpful” – sharing my experience.
After the conversation yesterday, I felt the need to pull myself back to equilibrium. Though those gaffes are well in my past, and I can mostly laugh about them, I’m not entirely removed from hurt and self-disappointment at discovering that what I meant as a gift was unwelcome; that I had been blind to the needs of others. I needed something more than to reiterate hard-learned lessons about listening, and how receiving another is often the one most needed gift. I needed the clarity of a wholly spiritual perspective.
At feeling this need, I instinctively turned to God, leaning my weight into the all-embracing presence of Spirit, letting go of my own sense of balance to sink into the equilibriating presence of Soul. I remembered that I’ve given up faith in my own ability to find a balance through the careful weighing of give and take. It’s not that I’ve become successful at achieving grace through razor-thin balancing acts. It’s that, when I achieve balance, it’s because I’m leaning on God.
Then I thought about how this law is also governing my friend, and her friend, and everyone who lives in life’s longing for love and fulfillment. It’s actually a force that is governing us more constantly than gravity, though we may think of it even less. Thinking of it more helps me relax and appreciate the glory of being. Understanding it helps me move in accord with the will of Love, and so feel empowered to bring more good into the world. But even when I haven’t understood Love’s governance, it still has shepherded me. How else can I account for the thread of joy that has held my life together, even on days when I didn’t feel it?
On my bike ride this morning I thought about the Bible passage “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above.” I realized that this supported my earlier thought: God is the giver of everything. Therefore we, as God’s reflection, can’t be tied up in knots with regard to our need to give and receive. It’s not possible for God’s reflection to feel the need to give but be confused about how to do it. It’s not possible for God’s reflection to see a proffered gift as an act of self-aggrandizement. It’s not possible to feel a mismatch – that our gifts are unwanted or that we can’t get what we need. It doesn’t take years of trying and failing to get it right until we learn how to interact in graceful give and take with others. There aren’t people who will just never get it, and I’m not such a person.
I still have a vestigial reflex, when I’m learning a lesson, to conclude that I’ve been wrong, along with everyone else who I believe holds the same approach. Feeling the governance of Spirit, holding each life in the perfect equilibrium of giving and receiving, generating joy and glory, is a sweet antidote, which replaces the bitterness of wrongness with the gratitude of being home.
I reflected to my friend that I think I’ve been like that friend at times. I had ideas about what things meant and how to do things, and I thought I was being interesting and helpful to share them. On one occasion (when I was once again sharing with the other English teachers how I had approached a certain lesson) I saw a look of unmasked distaste on the face of one of the teachers. But I couldn’t fathom why, and it seemed I couldn’t stop myself from “being helpful” – sharing my experience.
After the conversation yesterday, I felt the need to pull myself back to equilibrium. Though those gaffes are well in my past, and I can mostly laugh about them, I’m not entirely removed from hurt and self-disappointment at discovering that what I meant as a gift was unwelcome; that I had been blind to the needs of others. I needed something more than to reiterate hard-learned lessons about listening, and how receiving another is often the one most needed gift. I needed the clarity of a wholly spiritual perspective.
At feeling this need, I instinctively turned to God, leaning my weight into the all-embracing presence of Spirit, letting go of my own sense of balance to sink into the equilibriating presence of Soul. I remembered that I’ve given up faith in my own ability to find a balance through the careful weighing of give and take. It’s not that I’ve become successful at achieving grace through razor-thin balancing acts. It’s that, when I achieve balance, it’s because I’m leaning on God.
Then I thought about how this law is also governing my friend, and her friend, and everyone who lives in life’s longing for love and fulfillment. It’s actually a force that is governing us more constantly than gravity, though we may think of it even less. Thinking of it more helps me relax and appreciate the glory of being. Understanding it helps me move in accord with the will of Love, and so feel empowered to bring more good into the world. But even when I haven’t understood Love’s governance, it still has shepherded me. How else can I account for the thread of joy that has held my life together, even on days when I didn’t feel it?
On my bike ride this morning I thought about the Bible passage “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above.” I realized that this supported my earlier thought: God is the giver of everything. Therefore we, as God’s reflection, can’t be tied up in knots with regard to our need to give and receive. It’s not possible for God’s reflection to feel the need to give but be confused about how to do it. It’s not possible for God’s reflection to see a proffered gift as an act of self-aggrandizement. It’s not possible to feel a mismatch – that our gifts are unwanted or that we can’t get what we need. It doesn’t take years of trying and failing to get it right until we learn how to interact in graceful give and take with others. There aren’t people who will just never get it, and I’m not such a person.
I still have a vestigial reflex, when I’m learning a lesson, to conclude that I’ve been wrong, along with everyone else who I believe holds the same approach. Feeling the governance of Spirit, holding each life in the perfect equilibrium of giving and receiving, generating joy and glory, is a sweet antidote, which replaces the bitterness of wrongness with the gratitude of being home.
Friday, July 20, 2007
More than I can hold in my hands
At a meeting of our spiritual formation group, we were asked to page, in our thoughts, through the past few days of lives, as if we were viewing a photo album, and to notice what stood out.
I saw the image of me driving up Third Avenue at ten that morning, after talking with women in the jail. The sky was intense blue between the buildings, the green of the trees luminescent. I felt in that moment the vibrant aliveness of everything, seated in a deep gratitude.
The talks with the women, the sharing of scriptures and stories of their lives, had been satisfying. My feeling was that no stratification of society, from homeless to penthouse executive, can put anyone closer to God. It also can’t put anyone further away. That closeness to Truth is right here for any one of us. It doesn’t need us to dig out of a hole, improve ourselves, earn it. Truth is Truth because that’s what it is. Truth is Love, so everyone has that perfect place – the true nature of themselves as loved and loving.
Paging back a day, I thought of the service we had done in the jail on Sunday. The feeling of love was palpable, comfortable, as we sang together, prayed together. I noticed how different it was from my earlier days of doing services, where I had just hoped to get through with out too much disruption. How before I doubted what our humble (and long) reading had to offer to those who came to hear, and now I knew we were sharing truth as if breaking bread, and it would nourish and sustain.
Going back to earlier that morning, I remembered the moment when the attendant had opened the door to my Sunday school class to tell us it was almost time to join the congregation upstairs. “They’re kneeling now” – Sacrament Sunday, where we kneel together in silent prayer, and then pray the Lord’s prayer again, together.
My two students, aged five and three, were standing on the table. It’s a heavy board table, so it wasn’t in danger, and though they had been jumping around quite a bit, my students weren’t, either. I felt a bit red-handed to have them both standing there, full of laughter and exhilaration. But I also knew it was good. In between their jumping around we’d been learning the First Commandment, talking about the words and what they mean, talking about their right to be governed by good alone, all the time. I felt that the love that was filling that room, the joy of their enjoyment of each other and their activity, was the main message of the class. Yes it was almost out of control. As I remembered the moment, I thought of the phrase, “more than I can hold in my hands.” I felt it was perhaps OK to be almost out of control just because there was so much life flowing there, so much goodness. It seemed right to me that I didn’t have to try to hold everything of life in my hands – because it there’s too much to it. Its order is not of my making, but of its own being – of God’s making. As a companion phrase, the Biblical “my cup runneth over” came to mind.
This was the image I shared with my group, though in my mind all the images contributed to the feeling. A member of the group offered a beautiful prayer for me – it mentioned increasing wonder at the presence of God’s glories, and at the miracles flowing through my hands. I desire to help my hands to remember not to grasp so much as to let the waterfall of life flow through them; not to control the flow but just to create a bubbler from which I and others may drink.
I saw the image of me driving up Third Avenue at ten that morning, after talking with women in the jail. The sky was intense blue between the buildings, the green of the trees luminescent. I felt in that moment the vibrant aliveness of everything, seated in a deep gratitude.
The talks with the women, the sharing of scriptures and stories of their lives, had been satisfying. My feeling was that no stratification of society, from homeless to penthouse executive, can put anyone closer to God. It also can’t put anyone further away. That closeness to Truth is right here for any one of us. It doesn’t need us to dig out of a hole, improve ourselves, earn it. Truth is Truth because that’s what it is. Truth is Love, so everyone has that perfect place – the true nature of themselves as loved and loving.
Paging back a day, I thought of the service we had done in the jail on Sunday. The feeling of love was palpable, comfortable, as we sang together, prayed together. I noticed how different it was from my earlier days of doing services, where I had just hoped to get through with out too much disruption. How before I doubted what our humble (and long) reading had to offer to those who came to hear, and now I knew we were sharing truth as if breaking bread, and it would nourish and sustain.
Going back to earlier that morning, I remembered the moment when the attendant had opened the door to my Sunday school class to tell us it was almost time to join the congregation upstairs. “They’re kneeling now” – Sacrament Sunday, where we kneel together in silent prayer, and then pray the Lord’s prayer again, together.
My two students, aged five and three, were standing on the table. It’s a heavy board table, so it wasn’t in danger, and though they had been jumping around quite a bit, my students weren’t, either. I felt a bit red-handed to have them both standing there, full of laughter and exhilaration. But I also knew it was good. In between their jumping around we’d been learning the First Commandment, talking about the words and what they mean, talking about their right to be governed by good alone, all the time. I felt that the love that was filling that room, the joy of their enjoyment of each other and their activity, was the main message of the class. Yes it was almost out of control. As I remembered the moment, I thought of the phrase, “more than I can hold in my hands.” I felt it was perhaps OK to be almost out of control just because there was so much life flowing there, so much goodness. It seemed right to me that I didn’t have to try to hold everything of life in my hands – because it there’s too much to it. Its order is not of my making, but of its own being – of God’s making. As a companion phrase, the Biblical “my cup runneth over” came to mind.
This was the image I shared with my group, though in my mind all the images contributed to the feeling. A member of the group offered a beautiful prayer for me – it mentioned increasing wonder at the presence of God’s glories, and at the miracles flowing through my hands. I desire to help my hands to remember not to grasp so much as to let the waterfall of life flow through them; not to control the flow but just to create a bubbler from which I and others may drink.
Another dimension
I have no personal experience with the fierce loyalty of a soldier. I haven’t had the intense feeling of being willing to die for a cause or a person. It’s a thing I’ve read about in books, a thing I’ve felt the edges of in the “yes, ma’am,” of people involved with the military. It’s not something I’ve missed – my tendency is to be suspicious of obedience, wary of the blindness of following orders. Still, I’ve felt, from time to time, a wistfulness for the fervency such an allegiance could have. A book I read recently once again hinted at its power as an ordering principle and a giver of purpose in life. It left me thinking about what it would be like to have this kind of a relationship to God.
The intense eagerness to serve God wouldn’t have the pitfall of serving a person – the inevitable human failings – or of serving a cause, with the tendency of causes to get bogged down in process and co-opted by power-hunger. I felt a kind of swift excitement when I thought of being in service to Love – of dedicating all of my life to standing for Love, living it, acting according to its impulses. Though I think of God as Principle – as the creating, controlling force governing the universe, rather than an anthropomorphic entity, I found this sense of loyalty to be everything I hoped for it – galvanizing, ordering, purpose-giving. It added a dimension to my prayer. I thought, so this is the legitimacy of that whole allegiance concept. It is a thing we are meant to feel. It’s not a seductive but misguided way of having ones life ordered, or a great thing we miss out on if we are civilians. It’s part of the nature of love – part of my nature – to want to give myself in service. And service to Life, Love, is obedience to the great first commandment. Another compelling reason to give my allegiance to God.
The intense eagerness to serve God wouldn’t have the pitfall of serving a person – the inevitable human failings – or of serving a cause, with the tendency of causes to get bogged down in process and co-opted by power-hunger. I felt a kind of swift excitement when I thought of being in service to Love – of dedicating all of my life to standing for Love, living it, acting according to its impulses. Though I think of God as Principle – as the creating, controlling force governing the universe, rather than an anthropomorphic entity, I found this sense of loyalty to be everything I hoped for it – galvanizing, ordering, purpose-giving. It added a dimension to my prayer. I thought, so this is the legitimacy of that whole allegiance concept. It is a thing we are meant to feel. It’s not a seductive but misguided way of having ones life ordered, or a great thing we miss out on if we are civilians. It’s part of the nature of love – part of my nature – to want to give myself in service. And service to Life, Love, is obedience to the great first commandment. Another compelling reason to give my allegiance to God.
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
Arc of the Covenant
My daughter and I returned to Tae Kwon Do last week, after a month off. As we were practicing spinning hook kicks, I thought of the fact that, whatever the steps we are taught in learning the movement, we have to go beyond those steps to really do it. The steps are like dots we connect, but the movement itself is a smooth arc. Though we use the dots to understand the arc, we must then let go of them so that our movement is the smooth flowing from one impulse, with no stopping along the way.
This is true in many areas of life. In my daughter’s fiddle training, she goes beyond “the dots” – the musical notation – to the actual music, which is governed by its own internal order – the natural flowing of one phrase out of another. In social interaction, we go beyond the dots of polite behavior to find grace. In seeking truth, we must go beyond the dots of religion to the graceful arc of spirituality.
Riding my bicycle up the hill, feeling the complementary circles of arms and legs, connected by the undulating s-curves through my torso, I heard in my mind, “arc of the covenant.” I know the actual Biblical phrase says “ark,” and refers to the box which symbolically carried God’s promise to His people, or alternatively, to the boat which carried the promise of continuity of life for God’s creation. But I like to think of God’s promise, instead of something carried in a box or even a boat, as the laws which hold us in harmony, which make our movements flow in a perfect arc.
I’ve thought about how waves in water reflect the motion of Love. Each molecule receives the impulse of the wave in its own moment. No one is left out, and there is no strain of the impulse hitting a molecule more than once or failing to move through it to the next one. Each one is needed; each one is touched. Each one passes the impulse on to the next. The message of Love reaches everyone. The arc of the covenant is the circle-impelled wave that must fulfill all needs, because that is the law of it.
Even the first ark story also contains an arc – the rainbow which signified the promise of God’s continuing presence. And that arc appears unfailingly as a law of light – it’s not there at the whim of God; it’s there as a sign of God’s constancy. So, too, is the presence within us of the skill which lets us go beyond the dots to the arc of grace. Our lives are, themselves, a testimony to God’s constancy.
This is true in many areas of life. In my daughter’s fiddle training, she goes beyond “the dots” – the musical notation – to the actual music, which is governed by its own internal order – the natural flowing of one phrase out of another. In social interaction, we go beyond the dots of polite behavior to find grace. In seeking truth, we must go beyond the dots of religion to the graceful arc of spirituality.
Riding my bicycle up the hill, feeling the complementary circles of arms and legs, connected by the undulating s-curves through my torso, I heard in my mind, “arc of the covenant.” I know the actual Biblical phrase says “ark,” and refers to the box which symbolically carried God’s promise to His people, or alternatively, to the boat which carried the promise of continuity of life for God’s creation. But I like to think of God’s promise, instead of something carried in a box or even a boat, as the laws which hold us in harmony, which make our movements flow in a perfect arc.
I’ve thought about how waves in water reflect the motion of Love. Each molecule receives the impulse of the wave in its own moment. No one is left out, and there is no strain of the impulse hitting a molecule more than once or failing to move through it to the next one. Each one is needed; each one is touched. Each one passes the impulse on to the next. The message of Love reaches everyone. The arc of the covenant is the circle-impelled wave that must fulfill all needs, because that is the law of it.
Even the first ark story also contains an arc – the rainbow which signified the promise of God’s continuing presence. And that arc appears unfailingly as a law of light – it’s not there at the whim of God; it’s there as a sign of God’s constancy. So, too, is the presence within us of the skill which lets us go beyond the dots to the arc of grace. Our lives are, themselves, a testimony to God’s constancy.
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