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Scripture
20"I do not ask for these [disciples] only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, 21that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, 23I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me. 24Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world. 25O righteous Father, even though the world does not know you, I know you, and these know that you have sent me. 26I made known to them your name (i.e. Presence, Being), and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them." (St. John 17.20-26, ESV)
Commentary
I wear a tea shirt with the logo “Celebrate the Journey!” The spiritual life is a Journey, an exciting Journey. Sometimes, we feel like we are zooming down Pilgrim Interstate. Sometimes, we feel like we are plodding along Mud Lane. Sometimes, we feel we are circling Circle Confusion. Sometimes, we feel we are on Lost Street; at other times, we rejoice to have gotten through Doubt Alley and back on Faith Boulevard. Sometimes, we feel we are stuck on God Forsaken Road, only to get back, soon or later, onto Ecstasy Drive. Thankfully, built into our creation lives is the blessing of restoration, remembrance, and celebration, weekly, even daily, at Sabbath Stop. At any time we can drive right into the Eighth Day and rejoice in the good gifts of Creation. Then, we are ready to go again, in the bewildering, wonderful, frustrating, and fulfilling Journey.
Notice the refrain, above, “Sometimes, we feel.” Feelings come, feelings go. One of the most difficult lessons on the Journey is that we cannot trust our feelings. A danger, now, with much talk about intuition, is that we will mistake facile, fleeting feelings for true intuition. Indeed, we can equate feelings too easily with what I need to do, should do, or what God is leading me to do.
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Some could say, “But we can’t trust our thoughts, either.” Well, that is partly true. We cannot fully trust either our thoughts or feelings. We can be wrong in what we think, and feel what we think is right. We can be wrong in what we feel, and think we are right. An area wherein subjective feelings can lead to erroneous thoughts is regarding the presence or absence of God in communion; another area pertains to our oneness with the Wonderful Presence. Note, for this will be important later, my differentiation between communion and union.
James Emory White, in Embracing the Mysterious God: Loving the God We Don’t Understand, calls a time of felt-separation from God a “dry season.” White refers to C. S. Lewis speaking of “to undulate.” This undulation (i.e., a wave like motion) is the ebb and flow in our experience of the Wonderful Presence. The undulation is integral to spiritual experience, universally, warranting Lewis to call it “the law of undulation.” No matter what you or I do to retain a sense of felt-communion with God, we will have times of dryness, of felt-separation.
This is where contemplation and mystical Truth meet us with encouragement. Contemplation, or mysticism, speaks to the underlying union from which the undulation of felt-communion arises. We are never apart from God, regardless of what we feel or think, for essential union cannot become essential division, for an essential cannot be contradictory or become non-essential. What a relief to trust, to know, truly, that communion with Spirit, though manifesting in thought and feeling, is reliant on neither thought nor feeling.
Okay, does that mean we are just to rest in whatever state of feeling or thought we happen to be in at any given time? No, and Yes. Yes, and No. We practice being-in-faith regardless of our feelings or thoughts. We need to grow into insight regarding this law of undulation, partly for it concerns all our relationships, even our relationship with our selves. Likewise, we need to befriend the gifts that both felt-separation and felt-communion offer to us, for each state is graceful in its own way, each bears a gift for our wholeness. Eating all cookies or all liver is not a healthy spiritual diet.
However, we can help ourselves to enjoy more of a felt-sense of communion with God and more often. The ancient Celtic Christians spoke of “thin places” or “thin times.” They sought out these experiences, actually going to places to know, immediately, this enveloping sense of the Wonderful Presence. I will apply their practice to us below, later.
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