( .. this harks to the personal me, but thought i'd share the think of it
just in case something bites you ..
it's my blog after all 😊)
`|`
somehow i figured i had You fairly well figured, within the boundaries of what we've been told in scripture and the expressed ideologies of the experts ..
how arrogant of me
and them
i naively thought You to be definable, describable, explainable ..
packageable and deliverable
..
even though my intelligence quotient follows rather than leads, as a younger me i struggled through scary theological tomes, my rationale being this: even if i can't understand most of this, and will remember far less, i will plod on, power through, and some of the think will trickle down into my soul to benefit me somehow, and too to be retrieved at some future needed occasion, miraculously, i suppose ..
..
i live within a similar framework now
although it's wildly different in its similarity ..
although i 'know' what i believe, i can't easily explain it, or why
i can provide the general groundwork, but supporting it with detailed analyses and logical progression (the apologist's delight) is beyond me ..
i've arrived at a vista point where the view is absorbing and i blissfully drown in it, but to ask me to describe what i'm seeing is painfully obscure to my lips ..
i cannot translate my heart into words
.. and i am quite at peace with that
but i'm changed ..
my life is radically pointed in a direction that has no map
there are no breadcrumbs craftily dropped along the way
no secreted drawings
no mysterious riddles ..
there's only this pulling on my soul
" let's go this way "
and i follow ..
i follow this voice i recognize somehow
familiar in it's tone and timbre
comforting
trustworthy
a voice that bears a visage that, having not seen, i know i would admit
i am a changed person because of this voiced visage
and it thrills me to the bone
`|`
i'm not a theologian
although i sure wanted to be
i'm not a teacher
although i sure wanted to be
or a preacher ..
perhaps all that reading and underlining and cross-referencing hasn't produced much currency in terms of convincing people by argument and exposition, but i'm thankful that it lies there beneath, underground, somehow flowing together to produce in me a recognizable 'theology' that produces fruit
..
as to You
the one thing i have found in all my scrambling to master the christian religion is that You are far far from definition, and the closest i can get is Your humanized form in the person of Jesus,
the definitive Expression in our language and experience ..
thanks for that
but to know You, God, is tantamount to arrogance, and a presumption that only fools allow
You overturn our rationale
outrun our understanding
outshine our imagination
..
" where were you ?"
to Job ..
blowing his ancient mindset by pointing to things outside our comprehension, impossible to fathom, to conceive even ..
and i know that even though i stand thousands of years downwind of that good man, it bears nothing on knowing You, for You are beyond knowledge
You cannot be found out intellectually ..
You are known in relationship
in being
in I Am
the God who is
there
here
present
the God of indestructible life
who continues forever
Your spirit witnesses with our spirit that i am Yours
and the abrupt recognition of that tears off all the glamour and posing
leaving me utterly unmasked amazed and dumbfounded
unable to speak
for i am a person of unclean lips and the sheer sight of You
sends me to the Ground ..
there i can only hope for a burning coal to touch my mouth ..
how could i speak into such space ?
i lay my hand over my mouth .. .
i have no language for You
turn the page
