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The high things of God are foolishness and madness to man.
*St. John of the Cross, The Collected Works of John of the Cross, Ed. Kavanaugh, K., and Rodrigeuz, O.
. . .
One look
From your eyes into mine
An open hand to hold my hands,
I cried, you, too,
I was pulled, by such honesty, into your mind
Descended into your heart
Until now, I never knew,
What true friendship could mean
*brian k. wilcox
. . .
One fluttering leaf
awakened me to the Wind
One tick of a clock:
Suddenly! Eternity...
A drop of a tear
Immersed I was in the Sea...
Don't ask me how this happens
There are no words to speak of
such Mystery
What is the Way?
Only let it happen-"Recieve!"
*brian k. wilcox
. . .
Servants don't know what their master is doing, and so I don't speak to you as my servants. I speak to you as my friends, and I have told you everything that my Father has told me. (John 15.15, CEV)
This passage speaks, historically, of the teaching of Jesus of Nazareth to his first followers. Through his teaching the relationship with his disciples had changed over time. Jesus, being open about what he was given by Spirit and his framing of that in the works and words of his culture, had created a relationship with his followers based on honest disclosure from him to them. Jesus could not withhold this disclosure, if he willed to grow into a deepening union with his students. He had to risk being misunderstood to move his relationship with his followers to a deeper, deepening level.
When we enter the contemplative life, we grow to have an amazing, fruitful familiarity with the living Christ. The living Christ is another reference for the Wisdom (Greek, sophia) in Jesus. Jesus is rightly noted by modern Christian scholars to have been a wisdom teacher, and wisdom as stressed in late pre-Christian Judaism and Greek thought.
We transcend the idea of following Jesus as historical person; we take that following into a higher inclusion of the Word in Jesus and in us. We no longer just follow Jesus. We follow the Christ as the universalized, living, and all-inclusive Word (Greek, logos), which John says preceded Jesus, being timeless and boundless. This Logos is Sophia.
The same Word is in all things. Jesus can be for anyone the beginning, the historical referent, however, the ideas Christ, Logos, Teacher, … take on universal, non-historical implications. This means that Jesus, to use Indian terms, is a Sat Teacher: a Root Teacher. However, he is the means of the Teacher, the Word. In this sense, then, Jesus transcends time. Jesus embodied the universal Truth. And Jesus tried to point us to "the Father," the Source of Wisdom, the Beginning of the Word.
The contemplative honors Jesus by identifying with the sign of Jesus. That is, Jesus signifies for us what is greater than the historical man or any person. Jesus was a living sign. People were drawn to Jesus for he transcended his time and culture in living and incarnating the Truth. We honor Jesus by not reducing him to the historical, religious-political term Messiah, or Christ. That is indication, sign, shadow. However, the contemplative enters into the spirit of Jesus, the Spirit of Christ. Ultimately, of course, the contemplative transcends all signs and realizes their inner meaning in Union with God. This is the true meaning of mysticism.
In mysticism all words in the Word meet and all truth finds its beginning and end in Truth. Contemplatives are universal by orientation, in that God speaks through many peoples and means, because they are in communion and union with the Universal Spirit. This is why I say that not all who do "contemplative" prayer are contemplatives. Or, rather, I can conclude that the contemplative is on the path toward realization of the universal nature of the Christ, or Word. So, that person might resist this universalizing in her soul, as her soul is undergoing the graceful transmutation of all lesser embraces in the One Embrace of Grace. This is Love. But, if she refuses to follow this movement of God, then, she will fall from the onward grace of contemplation, which is a process of deepening realization of God as Love. She, in contemplation, is formed in the image of God, thus, she cannot go on resisting the tendency of the Spirit in favor of a lesser embrace of Spirit. Jesus Christ, as Word, will not undergo diminution.
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This universal, universalizing Spirit in Jesus still speaks to us, and through Jesus, even as it speaks in other ways. Why? For it is free of, in, and through Jesus. If it was not free of Jesus, it could not speak freely. Either Wisdom is boundless or bounded, for it cannot be contained and be free. This Word is nonlocal; that is, not contained in any locale. Therefore, this same living Wisdom can appear in other persons and ways. This Wisdom can be as real in you as it has ever been in anyone, for it is the same Word.
As we enter more deeply into the contemplative path of prayer and life, we find ourselves growing closer to this Reality. Jesus is detached from history and culture, and the universal Word speaks to us intuitively. The sign of Jesus is fulfilled in and through Jesus and in transcending the physical Jesus fulfills itself as the Living Christ, Word, and Wisdom of God. The place of Jesus is not limited but universalized by the wedding of the historical and transhistorical.
What emerges is familiarity, or friendship, over time. When once we related to the Living Word in Jesus as though it was other, now a deepening friendship emerges with the Word and, thus, with the Christ in Jesus. A wonderful, loving, and gentle familiarity grows between the soul and the Beloved. This is quite wonderful and surprising, for many of us have been led to believe we cannot have this familiarity. But, we can. We can relax and enjoy the company of the ineffable Living Christ. This can be natural, and it can appear non-religious, or impious, to those clinging to the signs of the faith, rather than moving to enjoy the fruition of indications of the faith.
If you have a pear tree, you do not cling to the trunk, trying to relish the taste of a pear. No! Once the tree produces the fruit, you are satisfied with the fruit. Mistaking the nature of the tree can keep one hungry. The tree is indication; the pear is fruition.
For the mystical Christian, this gentle, open familiarity, even friendship (Greek, philos), with the Living Christ, with God, comes about as a fruition of our devotion to Jesus of Nazareth. However, this new relationship is speechless! And any word I use to describe it is misleading, though I attempt to be indicative.
The dynamic reception of the Word, beyond reductionism, makes possible familiarity with Spirit at a very deep, all-embracing level. As one opens to ever-deepening expressions of the Word, and as this deepens into an intuitive knowing, beyond logic and reason, one becomes more comfortable with not-knowing. This is accompanied by a tranquil renunciation of linear knowledge to the immediacy of innate clarity and coinherence in unmediated knowledge of God. This is one reason contemplatives have no interest in arguing with spiritual materialists.
The source of this process of deepening intimacy is a disclosure, which, in linear terms, is perceived to come from "the Father." The "Father" (Greek, patros) is the divine Source, or Beginning Point, of the disclosure of Wisdom to the soul. This weds the soul and God into living contact and, eventually, mystical Union as One. Here God is seen to be one substance and one substance with the one substance of the universal Soul manifesting individually in each of us.
Therefore, I translate, or paraphrase, John 15:15 with a mystical meaning. "The living, indwelling Spirit, the living Word, speaks, 'I no longer treat you as one who has power over you. One who acts that way has not let the other know his deepest heart. No, rather, I relate to you as my closest companions. The relationship I enjoy with you is the natural fruition of my openness with you, and your receiving of what our common Creator is communicating from my soul to your souls. All this is possible for I have honestly shared with you all that I have sensed our common Spirit sharing with me.'"
Blessing to you. And may God guide you along the Way.
OneLife Ministries is a pastoral outreach and nurture ministry of the First United Methodist Church, Fort Meade, FL. For Spiritual Direction, Pastoral Counseling, spiritual formation workshops, Christian meditation retreats, or more information about OneLife, write Rev. Dr. Brian K. Wilcox at briankwilcox@comcast.net.
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