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Article
Once upon a time, there was a blind man who did not know what the Sun is. He asked other persons to explain. One man spoke, “The Sun is shaped like a copper plate.” So, the blind man felt the contours of a copper plate. Later, when he felt other objects shaped like a copper plate, he would think, “This must be like the Sun.” Another man spoke, "The Sun gives out warm light just like a candle." So, the blind man held a candle to feel its warm heat. Anytime he got near any warm light, he would think, “This must be like the Sun.” This process he did with any comparison offered him as a sign of the Sun.
In the midst of the great chapter on Love, I Corinthians 13, we are given these words:
11It's like this: When I was a child, I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child does. But when I grew up, I put away childish things. 12Now we see things imperfectly as in a poor mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God knows me now. (NLT)
Elsewhere, St. Paul describes a visionary experience:
1This boasting is all so foolish, but let me go on. Let me tell about the visions and revelations I received from the Lord. 2I was caught up into the third heaven fourteen years ago. 3Whether my body was there or just my spirit, I don't know; only God knows. 4But I do know that I was caught up into paradise and heard things so astounding that they cannot be told. (II Corinthians 12, NLT)
We live in a world of Shadows. Everything is relative in that each creature is a glorious and particularized expression of the Divine, a Divine that flows into Creation, continuously. The Divine flows through the Word; in that Word inheres every potential in its form of unity, before the manifestation of particularity in space and time. However, even the Idea of particularity itself must inhere in the Divine, for nothing can exists positively in space and time apart from it being in Being, the Divine, outside space and time.
However, does this mean that the relative is unimportant? Does it mean that in our spirituality we are to seek to escape the relative? Transcend the relative?
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Part of the message of the Gospel of Christ, and through the Incarnation, is that in the relative we experience the Absolute. We fall in Love with the Absolute by falling in Love with the world. Every creature is a theophany. Every moment is an epiphany. This means, also, we fall in Love with the Father, or Source, by means of the Son, or Wisdom. We do this through the Spirit, the enabling Grace within creation.
But, also, we fall in Love with the world by falling in Love with the Absolute. In loving the Light, we love the lights. This means, also, we fall in Love with the Son, or Wisdom, through the Father, the Source. We do this through the Spirit. The Spirit enables us to know the Son through the Father, as we know the Father through the Son; for the Spirit is the link within and among us, even around us, of Father and Son, or Source and Wisdom.
Reflections
Have you had any experience of a mystery that speaks to you of another “world,” so to speak? What was it like?
What does it mean to live in a world of Shadows?
How would you try to speak of God to a person who has never heard about God?
How does the Incarnation of Christ Jesus signify the interpenetration, or oneness, of transcendence and immanence?
How does your relationship with Christ encourage you to care for the earth? Love all peoples? Respect nonhuman creatures?
Spiritual Exercise
Make sure you have a sacred space in your home for time alone in prayer and spiritual reading.
Make sure you are in a covenant group. For more information on covenant groups, write me at the address below.
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
Brian’s book An Ache For Union can be purchased at major book dealers.
To contact Brian, write briankwilcox@comcast.net .
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