The God Who Dances

In the fourth century, Gregory of Nyssa suggested that understanding the Trinity can be aided by the metaphor of dance. So often, we use metaphors to try to explain how the Trinity could logically work. However, because it is an infinite reality, all of our “logical” metaphors fall short and often lead to faulty theology. On the other hand, a “practical” metaphor like the idea of dance is not intended to defend the idea but give a glimpse into the beauty of how it works. I love this idea of God existing in an eternal dance of love, trust, and mutual indwelling because it screams that God is relational and loving and desires to share that essence with us.

The video below was filmed by a friend and the three dancers are a part of our church and gladly shared their art in order to give a glimpse into the beauty of the Trinity.

Embracing Emptiness

We live in a world that talks endlessly about accomplishment and fulfillment. As a result, we strive endlessly for security and protection of that which we believe will give us accomplishments and fulfillment. However, what if we have it all wrong? What if life is really all about embracing emptiness? What if, instead of getting filled, it’s about becoming empty?

In the world of the church, we often substitute the idea of being filled with “worldly” things with being filled with God and accomplishing things for the kingdom instead of our own selfish pursuits. However, perhaps we’re making the mistake of taking a way of thinking (accomplishment and fulfillment) and filling it with new things when the Biblical text seems to be replete with challenges to empty ourselves and die to ourselves. (e.g., Philippians 2; Luke 9)

It might seem like we’re mincing words at this point but the distinction is critical. If our mindset is to fill and accomplish, then the onus or effort is on us. If the focus is on emptying ourselves, the onus is on God to fill and work through us for His purposes. The sheer joy of this approach is that all the pressure is off (even though we’ve become addicted to pressure and activity in Western culture) and we can simply be. The sheer challenge is that we are asked to release control and to wait.

The early 20^th century writer and activist Simone Weil commented: “Grace fills empty spaces, but it can only enter where there is a void to receive it, and it is grace itself which makes this void.” God will graciously create space in our lives through suffering. Again, maybe, just maybe, this is why the Bible talks so much about suffering.

The ancient mystic Johannes Tauler writes: “Often when He comes, He finds the soul occupied … and He cannot gain entry, for we love & desire other things.” How often in our attempts to “live for God” are we really just asking God to bless or care for our agendas and purposes (i.e., the things we love other than God)?

Embracing emptiness means that we begin to feel and experience the inherent emptiness of this present life (cf., Ecclesiastes). So much of the activity of the modern world is designed to distract us from this reality or numb ourselves to it altogether. Only when we begin to embrace emptiness is there space for the transforming union of relationship with the God who lives in Trinity. The wise sage Henri Nouwen counsels: “Be patient. When you feel lonely, stay with your loneliness. Avoid the temptation to let your fearful self run off. Let it teach you its wisdom; let it tell you that you can live instead of just surviving. Gradually you will become one, and you will find that Jesus is living in your heart and offering you all you need.”

Cling to the Cross

James Smith, a pastor from the 1800s, penned these words …

Cling to the cross—all through life! Never take the eye off it! Never withdraw the hand from it! By day and by night, at home or abroad, on the land or the sea, in poverty and plenty, in darkness and light, in sorrow and joy—cling to the cross!

If Satan harasses you—hold up the cross!

If death terrifies you—hold up the cross!

If conscience accuses you—silence it with the cross!

Cross of Jesus! You are now the ground of my hope, the object of my faith, the theme of my salvation, the subject of my song, the antidote of my miseries, and the joy of my heart. O may Your cross become growingly precious to me, and through life and all its changes, may I cling to Your cross!

Thomas Merton on “Faith”

“Absurdity is the anguish of realizing that underneath the apparently logical pattern of a more or less ‘well organized’ and rational life, there lies an abyss of irrationality, confusion, pointlessness, and indeed of apparent chaos. This is what immediately impresses itself upon the man who has renounced diversion. It cannot be otherwise, for in renouncing diversion, he renounces the seemingly harmless pleasure of building a tight, self-contained illusion about himself and his little world. He accepts the difficulty of facing the million things in his life which are incomprehensible instead of simply ignoring them. Incidentally it is only when the apparent absurdity of life is faced in all truth that faith really becomes possible. Otherwise, faith tends to be a kind of diversion, a spiritual amusement, in which one gathers up accepted, conventional formulas and arranges them in the approved mental patterns, without bothering to investigate their meaning, or asking if they have any practical consequences in one’s life.”

from Disputed Questions, Thomas Merton

Broken or Bitter?

Every so often (or, perhaps seemingly quite often), God graciously allows our circumstances to fall apart. If God is powerful enough and big enough to create the universe, then He is powerful enough and big enough to control the events of life. So, when we are slapped in the face with hard, painful things, we are also slapped in the face with the reality that God could have prevented our pain. Knowing that God is good (the cross of Jesus screams that reality quite well), He must be up to something when He doesn’t prevent or stop our pain.

And, often, that something is quite mysterious to us. But, it is in those moments, we are always faced with a choice. Will we become broken or bitter?

God’s gracious desire is that we become broken … broken to self and broken to dreams and plans that are inferior to the plans and dreams that He has for us. Unfortunately, for our desiring to know and control everything minds, His plans are mysterious and perhaps even too wonderful for us to grasp.

Bitterness is the response to broken dreams and plans that says, “I am my pain. I am my circumstances.” Whenever our identity, or the way we define ourselves, gets wrapped up in our circumstances — there is a bitterness that can set in. We identify with the dream of being married and so, a bitterness sets in when it doesn’t happen the way we dreamed it up. Or, we identify with having a certain lifestyle or job.

God desires to strip us of identification with what we do or what we have or what others think of us so that we could enter the joy of identifying with Him. That is brokenness … the process of coming to end of self and beginning to adopt God as our identity.

In Hosea 7:14, we find these words from God about the people of Israel … “They do not cry to me from the heart, but they wail upon their beds; for grain and wine they gash themselves; they rebel against me.”

Brokenness is to cry out from the heart … to be broken to ourselves and our dreams – to cry out to God from the heart, “O God, I desire You.” Bitterness is to wail upon the bed – to say, “look at my life, it’s horrible.” We frequently use the word broken to describe a life that is messy or hard (i.e., broken) but that’s often just a disguised bitterness. True brokenness is a heart that is broken and open to what God desires.

This can seem very harsh of God but it is actually a deep, deep graciousness … the great writer and thinker of the early 20th century Simone Weil said this, “Grace fills empty spaces, but it can only enter where there is a void to receive it, and it is grace itself which makes the void.”

Releasing My Mantra

“Move on”… a mantra of sorts.
“Stay in it” … seeming blasphemy.
Desire to be pain free supplanted.
Replaced by longing for divine union.
To stay, formed into His image.
To run, isolated from life.
Releasing my mantra for something better.
To live is Christ as I am still and know.

Julian of Norwich: a hero to my soul

Julian of Norwich was an amazing woman who lived in the middle of some difficult circumstances to say the least, including the Black Death and Hundred Years War. She lived in a small annex attached to the church in Norwich, England and spent her days in prayer and giving spiritual counsel to those in the community. She wrote about her passion and longing for God. In his book, Water from a Deep Well, Professor Gerald Sittser recounts a central prayer of Julian’s:

“Julian asked God for three gifts – an understanding of the Passion of Chirst, a severe physical illness and ‘three wounds’ (true contrition, loving compassion, and longing for God). She believed that the experience of suffering would allow her to identify with the Passion of Christ and comprehend something of the magnitude of God’s love for her and the world.”

As I read her prayer, I am struck deeply by her longing to know (experience) God’s love. Certainly, she knew the theological underpinings of God’s grace but knowing intellectually didn’t satisfy her soul. She wanted to feel it down deep in her bones. I am challenged to the core by Julian’s passion and it leads me to several questions.

How much do I want to know God’s love? Enough to ask for a physical illness? Enough to not run from hardship becauase of what God might be doing in me through it? Enough to stop running after pleasure (seeking a new future, reclaiming something from the past, or simply deadening my experience of the present through activity)?

I do know that something of Julian’s passion resonates with me. I do know that when I am honest, I want God that much but then again I don’t. There is a part of me that says, “play it safe” and “you don’t really want God more than comfort and pleasure and good reputation.” As I survey the terrain of my soul, I realize that I am at the edge of a cliff and to jump will be the greatest thrill of my life (trusting that God will catch me and show me His glory in deepening ways) while to stay means that I will know of God but miss the depths. I realize that I’ll never talk myself into it (same as a real cliff). I just have to jump.

So, as I move into a new year, “I’m jumping Father. I want you more than physical health or any other material blessing. I want to know you – whatever it takes.”