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tree_and_leaf... though if it is one track, it's one that also has an unconscionable number of branches leading off it, some of them in distinctly odd directions. One of the oddities of lj - though it's what makes it fascinating - is that it sits on a fence between being a private journal and something for a particular audience....
I was very struck, anyway, by the sermon this evening. It was on Mk 4:21-2 (He said to them, "Do you bring in a lamp to put it under a bowl or a bed? Instead, don't you put it on its stand? For whatever is hidden is meant to be disclosed, and whatever is concealed is meant to be brought out into the open.)
He began by saying that probably the most obvious way to react to "whatever is hidden is meant to be disclosed" is to feel rather worried - it has a flavour of the judgment passages, and of the bits of our lives that we don't want others to see, or indeed to see ourselves, being dragged into the light. However, that doesn't really make sense in context of the passage, which is talking about the light being hidden, and then being brought out to give light.
We're still in Epiphany, which is, of course, all about moments of revelation, from the Magi to the Baptism to the Presentation in the Temple (the chronology is screwy, yes, but never mind that for now), of Christ being made visible in the world - except it's a very odd sort of visibility, only to a few people and not a definite final revelation that tells you everything about him; it's a passing moment as yet.
Now, we tend to be rather impatient with that sort of revelation - we long for a definite experience that will answer all our questions - or even just answer one question, for instance tell us what to do in a difficult situation. Actually, though "religious experiences" - and people who seem quite sane do sometimes experience quite extraordinary things - still don't satisfy that longing, because they're only transient; and anyway, what really matters is what appears to be mundane life.* The God who was born as a human being, who descends on the disciples at Pentecost, is to be found in the mundane, in the encounters between people, for instance in the conversations where things suddenly shift for you and you understand something only tangentially related to the conversation.
Because perhaps the best way to understand the 'light' in the verses quoted that it is Christ, who is the light of the world and who is in all Christians,† whether we notice him or not, but who will not stay hidden in our darkness. God keeps getting out, and part - maybe the biggest part - of the Christian life is learning to recognise Christ's presence in the every day, the moments when the light gets through, and learning to take the light out from under the bed and let it get to work giving light to the world.
* And for this reason, maybe it doesn't, in the end, matter if 'visions' can be traced to rational causes - whether it be some physical condition of the brain (e.g. if the theory about Hildegard's visions relating to migraines is correct), or whether there is an element of unconscious imagination and visualisation - because you can't separate the soul and the body, and how can you think without it lighting up on a cat scan? The authenticity or otherwise of a vision can really only be told by what it says, and what results it produces in the visionary. For instance, in the sermon the chaplain - though disclaiming any spectacular religious experiences - related how at his ordination he had had a very vivid sense, just before the bishop laid hands on him, of being surrounded by power and love. Now, you could say that was imagination - not in the negative sense of something consciously made up to make oneself important, but simply a natural and unwilled response of a serious, sincere person in a state of emotional excitement at a life-changing moment. But I don't think that invalidates the experience - humans are creatures of imagination and nerves and emotions, and I don't see why God shouldn't speak to us through them. Indeed, it's hard to see how it can be avoided that he should, God being interested in all of us, not merely the rational intellect.
By an odd coincidence, I found the following quote from Eckhart this evening, which I think is very relevant: "Let God operate in you; hand the work over to him and do not worry as to whether or not he is working with nature or above nature, for both nature and grace belong to him." (In Collationibus.)
† And, I'd add, in another sense in everyone, since there is no good without God.
I was very struck, anyway, by the sermon this evening. It was on Mk 4:21-2 (He said to them, "Do you bring in a lamp to put it under a bowl or a bed? Instead, don't you put it on its stand? For whatever is hidden is meant to be disclosed, and whatever is concealed is meant to be brought out into the open.)
He began by saying that probably the most obvious way to react to "whatever is hidden is meant to be disclosed" is to feel rather worried - it has a flavour of the judgment passages, and of the bits of our lives that we don't want others to see, or indeed to see ourselves, being dragged into the light. However, that doesn't really make sense in context of the passage, which is talking about the light being hidden, and then being brought out to give light.
We're still in Epiphany, which is, of course, all about moments of revelation, from the Magi to the Baptism to the Presentation in the Temple (the chronology is screwy, yes, but never mind that for now), of Christ being made visible in the world - except it's a very odd sort of visibility, only to a few people and not a definite final revelation that tells you everything about him; it's a passing moment as yet.
Now, we tend to be rather impatient with that sort of revelation - we long for a definite experience that will answer all our questions - or even just answer one question, for instance tell us what to do in a difficult situation. Actually, though "religious experiences" - and people who seem quite sane do sometimes experience quite extraordinary things - still don't satisfy that longing, because they're only transient; and anyway, what really matters is what appears to be mundane life.* The God who was born as a human being, who descends on the disciples at Pentecost, is to be found in the mundane, in the encounters between people, for instance in the conversations where things suddenly shift for you and you understand something only tangentially related to the conversation.
Because perhaps the best way to understand the 'light' in the verses quoted that it is Christ, who is the light of the world and who is in all Christians,† whether we notice him or not, but who will not stay hidden in our darkness. God keeps getting out, and part - maybe the biggest part - of the Christian life is learning to recognise Christ's presence in the every day, the moments when the light gets through, and learning to take the light out from under the bed and let it get to work giving light to the world.
* And for this reason, maybe it doesn't, in the end, matter if 'visions' can be traced to rational causes - whether it be some physical condition of the brain (e.g. if the theory about Hildegard's visions relating to migraines is correct), or whether there is an element of unconscious imagination and visualisation - because you can't separate the soul and the body, and how can you think without it lighting up on a cat scan? The authenticity or otherwise of a vision can really only be told by what it says, and what results it produces in the visionary. For instance, in the sermon the chaplain - though disclaiming any spectacular religious experiences - related how at his ordination he had had a very vivid sense, just before the bishop laid hands on him, of being surrounded by power and love. Now, you could say that was imagination - not in the negative sense of something consciously made up to make oneself important, but simply a natural and unwilled response of a serious, sincere person in a state of emotional excitement at a life-changing moment. But I don't think that invalidates the experience - humans are creatures of imagination and nerves and emotions, and I don't see why God shouldn't speak to us through them. Indeed, it's hard to see how it can be avoided that he should, God being interested in all of us, not merely the rational intellect.
By an odd coincidence, I found the following quote from Eckhart this evening, which I think is very relevant: "Let God operate in you; hand the work over to him and do not worry as to whether or not he is working with nature or above nature, for both nature and grace belong to him." (In Collationibus.)
† And, I'd add, in another sense in everyone, since there is no good without God.
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(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-30 01:04 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-30 08:32 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-30 05:12 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-30 01:10 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-30 11:13 am (UTC)/ profound theological analysis!
(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-30 01:38 am (UTC)It makes me think, weirdly, of earworms, those songs that get stuck in your head. If you hear a song once through, you may remember bits of it but most if it is gone almost immediately. But the surest way to get an earworm is to hear part of a song you already know.
That is to say, there are moments when we really see and know some aspect of truth, fully and completely, but they're gone so fast that it's like trying to hold water in your hands. But if you keep hearing snatches of the truth you already know (say, some otherwise dry theology) in every day life, it will get into your head and never come out again, changing the way you think - and, conversely, make those moments of clarity much easier to recognize and understand.
Was that coherent?
(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-30 11:15 am (UTC)