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Poem
Love
Gives herself to all things,
Most excellent in the depths,
And above the stars
Cherishing all.
For the High King:
She has given
The kiss of peace.
—St. Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179), Hildegard of Bingen: An Anthology, Trans. Robert Carver, Ed. Fiona Bowie and Oliver Davies
Quote
Because the divine goodness could not be adequately represented by one creature alone, God produced many and diverse creatures, that what was wanting in one in representation of the divine goodness might be supplied by another. For goodness, which in God is simple and uniform, in creatures is manifold and divided. Thus the whole universe together participates in the divine goodness more perfectly and represents it better than any single creature whatever.
—St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica
Story
Once a man had a vision of heaven and hell. Surprisingly, many persons he saw in hell, he had thought would be in heaven. He asked the guiding angel about this matter. The angel spoke, “My friend, those are the ones who said, ‘I am going to heaven.’” The confused man spoke, “But what is wrong with that?” Replied the angel, “There is no such thing as an I in heaven, indeed, that is what makes hell hell.”
Comments
Heaven and hell are not just future states, like locales waiting for us with physical geography. Heaven and hell begin now and are spiritual realities. Any states after death are only continuations of now. Heaven is the Kingdom of God, the Kingdom of Heaven, Love, Walking in the Spirit, Being in Christ, Having the Mind of Christ, Living from the Center, … Hell is the opposite.
Aquinas and Hildegard of Bingen speak of what in theology is called ekstasis. Ekstasis was coined in the early church in reference to God going out of God’s Self toward creation. The early Church termed this going out Love: recall Hildegard’s words, “Love gives herself to all things.” Love, then, is not essentially, as in much modern thought, an emotion. Principally, Love refers to the act of extending one’s self out into interpenetration with the other. Love emulates God’s ekstasis. Love is God's ekstasis through the creature.
Love, then, as Aquinas and the early Church agreed, is not simply in regard to humankind. Much Christian religion is, sadly, almost only anthropocentric: that is, human centered, rather than creation oriented. I myself came up in such a human-idolatrous faith. To treat Grace with such lack of extension to creation is an act of idolizing the human species.
The human being alone cannot adequately express God’s goodness. God goes out of God’s self to create and through the divine graces and to sustain all creation and every creature. Every creature is an icon of the Son of God. The Divine singleness and simplicity expresses its innate pleroma, or divine fullness, through the diversity of creatures. God, then, not only wants diversity, God encompasses within God’s self diversity. Indeed, Love is the divine energy that makes diversity in creation possible and wonderful.
The story above speaks of the God-going-out, this Love, by noting that the I-ness is what makes hell hell. I-ness is a focus on the self as individual, as self-contained, rather than the self as communion, or open outward into mutual indwelling with other persons, creation, and the Triune God. Hell is living in and from I. Hell is a collection of separate I-nesses.
God cannot live in hell. Why? For one reason, God is Love. God, being God, being a Communion Event, as the Holy Trinity, cannot live in hell for Communion negates the I-ness that makes hell hell. The Trinity is the exemplar of heaven. To die to the I as individual and be born anew into the consciousness and state of communion means to enter Heaven, and now.
Therefore, no I is ever saved into a relationship with Christ Jesus. To enter the Holy Communion of the Body of Christ, unified in a beautiful diversity, the I must die and be reborn into All. Each one of us is a spiritual and heavenly reality only when the each one is subsumed within the All; subsuming the All within the each one is hell.
We need to focus on the arena of creation as the context of salvation. I cannot be saved apart from creation. I cannot enjoy Heaven apart from creation. Christ is the Cosmic Christ, filling all Creation, and Christ is, at the same time, the historical Jesus Christ, hallowing creation by incarnating in creation and as creation.
The contemplative prayer and life is not a flight from creation. Rather, through Silence we grow to have a livelier and intimate relationship with creatures and by Love we go out, not just to humans, but also to creation. We are creation, together.
Reflection and Spiritual Exercise
Recall a time when you felt the Presence of God in nature? Go into meditation and go back to that place and seek to feel that sensation again.
Consider, if you are not already, sponsoring a child through Compassion International. You can find out more about Compassion International by going to www.compassion.net to read about sponsoring, in the name of Jesus, children living in poverty. Thanks! Brian K. Wilcox
To contact Brian, write briankwilcox@comcast.net .
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