Living in the upside down, in a tortured inversion of cultural mores, where tolerance is most celebrated by its intolerance of opposing views; where we’re told that fighting racism requires us all to segregate ourselves into irreconcilable roles of perpetual conflict – no amount of common sense could ever hope to unravel such a Gordian knot of self-delusion. For the narrative of these neo-Gnostics, pretending to have awakened to some deeper truth, has so poisoned the well of civil discourse with its pseudo-moral pretense – no one dare object . . . out loud. But we all know it’s broken – even if we’re not allowed to say so.
But this is just one more iteration of the brokenness of a self-deluded world. Just one more variation of the palpable upside down that fills us all with unease — the ever-present reminder of our own fallen natures on full display. If truth be told, we’ve lived in the upside down for so long that the right side up isn’t readily apparent to us, except for maybe a glimpses of it breaking through into our lives – but even then we’re tempted to respond in an upside down way . . . assuming that having the power to control our circumstance will somehow set things right.
But such a Nietzschean “will to power” assumption is part of how things got so upside down in the first place. In fact, to view everything in life as a power struggle, invariably places us back in the Garden of Eden, believing that we could somehow self-exist as our own god – making the world conform to our own image. Is this not how we experience the upside down of the world, imposing itself on us, on every level, in the world today? In this way, history replays again and again the same broken scenario – wanting so desperately to be free of our chains, we can’t seem to resist the impulse to forge new chains.
Jesus was born into a backwater portion of the Roman Empire. It was a cruel and unforgiving world, where Roman authority was absolute. It was an authority maintained by the brutality of violence – a threat of violence constantly reminding the people of who had the power . . . and what happens to anyone challenging their authority. So it was within this context, the Roman practice of crucifying criminals and subversives came to symbolize the stark distinction between the powerful and the powerless. So for the Romans the cross was an ultimate display of power . . . and those who hung upon it were the pitiably powerless.
As profound as the Resurrection is to the Christian confession, it is the Cross that has become the unexpected symbol of our faith. Without a doubt, it is the power of the Resurrection that gives our faith hope – but it is the Cross that defines the very nature of that power. For it is the Cross of Christ that inverts our upside down understanding of what real power looks like. Rome in all its self-assured grandeur, fades into history as one more empire come and gone – but ironically, it is their symbol of brutality that survives the test of time . . . not as a symbol of how the mighty control the world . . . rather, as a symbol of how self-emptying love saves the world. So we take up our cross and follow Him.
. . . and for the Christian everything begins and ends at the cross.
St Bernard of Clairvaux believed that what the Shema places in stark relief is the tension between our default inclination to love God within a quid pro quo expectation of personal advantage — with our need to love God, for God’s sake. Therefore we are to desire God, and God alone – and not simply above all other things . . . but within all things. That every desire we have might be emptied out of its own ambition, and offered in oblation to the God who is One!
Even the person with a healthy appreciation for self-love doesn’t subscribe to a selfish love, as much as they practice a form of self-identifying love – correctly identifying themselves as the beloved of God, as one who bears his image. For they know that love has been calling their name long before the foundations of the world, and it is that very love resonating within them that they have identified. Because love set apart from the ineffably transcendent truth, that God is love, is nothing more than a meaningless self-indulgence pretending to be something more.
In Colossians 3:9 Paul invites us to quit lying to ourselves and one another, and to remember that we’ve already taken off those old clothes, and the madness associated with them. But this invitation isn’t just another iteration of rules (Colossians 2:20-23), for in Christ we are dead to those rules. No, this is an invitation to remember that as image bearers of God, all of the superficial things that divide us evaporate in Christ (Colossians 3:10,11).
For those Jesus called to be his disciples, Jesus was a local carpenter, who disappeared into the wilderness for forty days like a prophet of God. So when he returned, they would have thought of him as a man called of God – who was now calling them to join him. John the Baptist was already known to them to be a prophet of God, calling people to repentance – they may therefore, have assumed that Jesus would be like John, calling for repentance . . . unaware that Jesus was the very one that John had been prophesying about.
Too often in my youth the urgency of my convictions fueled the self-importance of my bravado, creating for me the illusion that my efforts had heat and edge. And it wasn’t that my convictions were somehow misplaced, as much as they lacked the wisdom of understanding how best to make them known — in a more fully formed way. But now, so many layers of shed skin later, so many iterations of me later — I’m still convinced, and even more confident of my calling, yet I’m humbled by the path that calling has taken. I guess you could say I’ve grown tired of trying to do something important with my life . . . but haven’t yet lost my interest in knowing what it is that God is already doing.
It is the Christian confession, that as believers, we not only bear the image of God, we are also indwelt by the Holy Spirit. So not only do we reflect his glory — we are meant to refract his glory . . . in the same way that light pours through a prism. As God changes us we become the face of God to those who have forgotten what he looks like – it is how we become a tangible instrument of God’s grace to the world. We are not the source of this light, but the light passing through us does take on the color and shape of our personal story . . . of redemption and reconciliation.
In the parable of the Ten Virgins (Matthew 25) we find an important distinction between those who have prepared themselves to wait the night . . . with those who have not. When the discipline of patience is given focus, like those in the parable prepared themselves to wait the night for the bridegroom, it becomes a meditation of the heart. Our longing for daybreak, filled with anticipation, filled with a sacred expectation – allows us to know the night as a friend, delivering us eventually to our hearts desire. This is what it means to watch the night – to keep vigil through the night . . . knowing the morning will come.
So I learned early on, the importance of tuning into the emotional state of everyone involved. I had to learn to read the room. The more I focused on the objectives of the project, the more I ran the risk of leaving behind those who I had asked to join me in the process. So sometimes, I needed to be willing to put on hold those objectives in order to assure that everyone was making the trip together. Because making music, making art, is first and foremost, a very human enterprise. After all, music that is evocative, that moves us, in a very real way, is an expression of our deep longing for transcendent beauty and significance.
So it turns out that the non-theist knows precisely the God who doesn’t exist — but is absolutely clueless about the one that might actually exist . . . because they refuse to accommodate the idea that if he is God, then logically he would be the one to dictate the terms under which he makes himself known. So, I ask “when you look out the window of your home and there are no cars in the driveway – you are aware of their absence, because you’ve established a baseline expectation of what you’re looking for . . . but if you really don’t know what you’re looking for, how do you know it’s not already there?”
Fear of suffering – We fear that we might have to suffer, whether emotionally or physically. We fear that a loved one might suffer, and all we can do is helplessly watch. We fear that we might be the cause of someone else’s suffering, regardless of our intent. The fear of suffering, in many ways, is the most obvious to us – but that doesn’t make it any easier to deal with.
Chasing Light 