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A Sagely Word
God is God-ing, creation is creation-ing, every aspect of creation is in process and continuously unfolding like an infinite flower opening its petals. In this reality, “knowing” is a moment-to-moment phenomenon, past and future are only in our minds, we are copartners with God-ing in the cosmic process, and each person has the full freedom of choice.... Nothing we do, say, or think is inconsequential; every action affects not only this reality but also other realities, ...
*Rabbi David A. Cooper, God is a Verb. Cooper is a Jewish mystic, author, and student of Kabbalah. He studied mystical Judaism in the Old City of Jerusalem for eight years.
Commentary
The late East Indian, Catholic priest, and mystic Anthony de Mello shares the following story in his The Song of the Bird, in a section entitled “The Baby Stops Crying.”
The master was once asked by a disciple,
“What is the Buddha?”
He replied,
“The mind is the Buddha.”
Another day he was asked the same question and he replied,
“No mind. No Buddha.”
The disciple was confused:
“But the other day you said, ‘The mind is the Buddha.’”
Said the master,
“That was to stop the baby crying. When the baby stops crying, I say, ‘No mind. No Buddha.’”
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De Mello was an in-your-face writer. He integrated stories and teachings from varied religions and attacked head-on the childishness that is the trait of much religion. De Mello was not against persons having to have a baby faith. He did speak strongly against remaining, however, crying babies in the faith.
Growing up is hard work and entails vulnerability and risk. Growing up entails getting lost. And it is no different with growing up spiritually. Growing up spiritually is hard work, entails vulnerability and risk, and means you will get lost, often.
I had served as pastor for one congregation for a number of years. I realized I had been preaching, for years, a continual summons and example, lived out in my life, to go beyond their past to a new horizon, as persons and church. I recall the day I spoke, on a Sunday morning, “I share with you things other pastors would not, for I trust you can handle it.” I spoke to them of the opportunity of becoming a church unlike any other in the area, a distinctive congregation offering a place for persons who felt alienated from the Christian faith, a church with an emphasis different from any other of the same denomination in town. And the nature of the city made the ministry I proposed a means to accept a large part of the town as a mission field. My summons was a demanding one, in that it would have entailed a growing beyond the horizon that had defined the congregation for its entire history. That summons was to go where the congregation had never been, which would entail everything I noted above: hard work, vulnerability, risk, getting lost.
We are invited each moment to go where we have never been. The Isaiah 43.18-20 writer challenges exiles to welcome the dawning newness. To accept this summons is to live into the promise of Spirit doing something new, now, something they alone, apart from Grace, could never do:
Continued... |
