my delusion ..

( .. 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