Categories: study, reading, spiritual-writings
Date: 19 May 2009 02:58:12
From Eurovision to early Church Fathers...my interests are eclectic at least!
I do wish this 5-week reading course went for longer in some respects; I am finding it not only fascinating and enjoyable, but particularly insightful into struggles in my own Christian journey -- thanks be to God. Though, if in the 3 weeks so far I have been challenged a great deal, perhaps 5 is the perfect length to ensure I can at least take some benefit and practical steps from this course, rather than being overwhelmed with, say, 10 weeks, of inner analysis.
One insight from last week's session was the movement of Moses through three stages: and while Moses becomes closer and closer to God, and more and more illumined, the move is, oddly, from light to darkness: the Burning Bush, the entrance into the dark cloud where God was; and then Moses ascent on Mt Sinai to the darkness where God was. Human sense would tell us such a move might be better visualised as going from dark to light, not light to dark, but St Gregory brings out deeper themes in his analysis of this.
The Burning Bush is an illuminiation: a move from false to true, the unreal to the real: a move to God, Who alone is reality and light. But then, as we journey through the Christian life, we realise that while in one sense our knowledge, and light, of God becomes brighter, we also discover evermore depth and 'unknowing-ness' about God: He cannot be fully grasped by the human mind. He has a Hidden Nature. This, to us, may be symbolised as darkness, as contradictory as it may appear. St Gregory explains:
What does it mean that Moses entered the darkness and then saw God in it? What is recounted seems somehow to be contradictory to the first theophany, for then the Divine was beheld in light but now he is seen in darkness. Let us not think that this is at variance with the sequence of things we have contemplated spiritually. Scripture teaches by this that religious knowledge comes at first to those who receive it as light. Therefore what is perceived to be contrary to religion is darkness, and the escape from darkness comes about when one participates in light. But as the mind progresses and, through an ever greater and more perfect diligence, comes to apprehend reality, as it approaches more nearly to contemplation, it sees more clearly what of the divine nature is uncontemplated.For leaving behind everything that is observed, not only what sense comprehends but also what the intelligence thinks it sees, it keeps on penetrating deeper until by the intelligence's yearning for understanding it gains access to the invisible and the incomprehensible, and there it sees God. This is the true knowledge of what is sought; this is the seeing that consists in not seeing, because that which us sought transcends all knowledge, being separated on all sides by incomprehensibility as a kind of darkness. Wherefore John, the sublime, who penetrated into the luminous darkness, says,
No one has ever seen God, thus asserting that knowledge of the divine essence is unattainable not only by men but also by every intelligent creature.The Life of Moses, tr. A J Malherbe & E. Ferguson 1978, Paulist Press: New York, pp. 94-95
Just applying this small part of the work to my life brings me some challenges, and some comforts. Being one who likes to read, who likes to know about things, it is somewhat of a slap in the face to reading theology as simply ideas to know about God, rather than to know Him. I am sure I have raised this struggle of mine here previously, and while I know, deep down, we are called to a lliving relationship with God, the inner perfectionist and inner scholar within me cries if I only knew a bit more about God I would reach some stage of blessedness where I can be called a "good Christian". Obviously, such thoughts are not vocalised as such, it is only on analysis that I see this, but there is that intent, that belief, behind my actions: the belief that perfection is a goal rather than a journey. This reading has helped me to correct this.
The comfort that flows from this is a resting in God: a release from the feeling, wrong but pervasive, that it all depends on me and unless I know everything about God I won't be "good enough" or "pass the grade" to walk through the pearly gates. God is completely unknowable and I will never cease, even after, God willing, 10,000 years in heaven, from finding new depths to the love, peace and mystery of God. The journey goes on forever...
Thanks and praise be to God.