Knowing God

"...the messiness of the Old Testament tells us that God is very real to his people and very near."

--Peter Enns, Inspiration and Incarnation (110)

The Painful Love of God

I've been spending some time reflecting on love and the cross of Christ. What a disturbingly beautiful expression of love: God joined humanity to show us love. And God -- through the person of Jesus Christ -- let us nail him to a freakin' piece of tree. He let humanity spit in his face. He let people grab his hair and wack him with sticks. Jesus winced as humanity made a mockery of God. And then he asked God to forgive them. He said, "Please forgive them...they don't know what they're doing." (Lk 23.34)

Why??

There's no logical answer. It doesn't make sense. Jesus simply loved humanity. And it must have hurt. So much.

When I, for just a moment, catch a glimmer of God's love for creation, I am moved to tears. My stomach knots, and I want to puke. My head feels heavy; I can only whisper "thank you." It hurts to be loved by God.

I'm trying to wade through theories of the atonement and gain a breadth of perspectives. I'll be posting excerpts and reflections of those enamored by Jesus. Through this journey of seeking to understanding love, I don't want the cross to become a token of attained knowledge or attained forgiveness. May the cross of Jesus Christ be a raw symbol of ardent love. May this symbol drive me to my knees in thankfulness. May the cross compel me to live a life of love, justice, and mercy.

"If you've ever known the love of God, you know it's nothing but reckless and it's nothing but raging. Sometimes it hurts to be loved, and if it doesn't hurt it's probably not love - maybe infatuation. I think a lot of American people are infatuated with God, but we don't really love Him, and they don't really let Him love them. Being loved by God is one of the most painful things in the world, it's also the only thing that can bring us salvation and it's like everything else that is really wonderful, there's a little bit of pain in it, little bit of hurt." - Rich Mullins

filled with dialectic's wonder

It takes a crane to build a crane
It takes two floors to make a story
It takes an egg to make a hen
It takes a hen to make an egg
There is no end to what I'm saying

It takes a thought to make a word
And it takes some words to make an action
And it takes some work to make it work
It takes some good to make it hurt
It takes some bad for satisfaction

Ah la la la la la la life is wonderful
Ah la la la la la la life goes full circle
Ah la la la la life is wonderful
Ah la la la la la

It takes a night to make it dawn
And it takes a day to make you yawn brother
And it takes some old to make you young
It takes some cold to know the sun
It takes the one to have the other

And it takes no time to fall in love
But it takes you years to know what love is
And it takes some fears to make you trust
It takes those tears to make it rust
It takes the dust to have it polished

Ah la la la la la la life is wonderful
Ah la la la la la la life goes full circle
Ah la la la la la la life is wonderful
Ah la la la la

It takes some silence to make sound
And it takes a loss before you found it
And it takes a road to go nowhere
It takes a toll to make you care
It takes a hole to make a mountain

[Life is Wonderful -- Jason Mraz]


Life is dialectic. Dialectic is life.

Knowing.Loving.Living

We long for community. We hunger for love. We ache for authentic conversation -- the kind that draws its participants to experience change in the depths of their being as they commune with one another. During my undergraduate years at Roberts Wesleyan College, I sought knowledge. I entered the community with electric excitement. I was thrilled to join a bubble where my imagination could be stroked and my questions could be answered. Yet as I journeyed, I met ugly demons and grotesque gargoyles. Reality bore the name of Brokenness, and its shards screamed of irony. Answers weren't handed to me. Isolation forced me to seek relationship. I was challenged to truly listen, to embrace silence, and to love.

I found solace with Parker Palmer. The Senior Advisor to the Fetzer Institute writes:
The goal of a knowledge arising from love is the reunification and reconstruction of broken selves and worlds. A knowledge born of compassion aims not at exploiting and manipulating creation but at reconciling the world to itself. The mind motivated by compassion reaches out to know as the heart reaches out to love. Here, the act of knowing is an act of love, the act of entering and embracing the reality of the other, of allowing the other to enter and embrace our own. In such knowing we know and are known as members of one community, and our knowing becomes a way of reweaving that community's bonds. (To Know As We Are Known, p.8)

Imagining possibilities and gaining understanding of the world is only conceivable through authentic relationship -- embracing the Other with spontaneity and selflessness. I yearn to know and be known. There is much to converse about...and there are so many to converse with. As I anticipate coming conversation, I look forward to meeting new friends at Duke Divinity School this fall. And as I gear up for beginning the Masters of Divinity program, I'll be posting biblical, theological, philosophical, logological, sociological, ethical, and (...!) reflections in the coming days. I welcome your questions, reflection, and critique. Please enter the conversation!

Oh, and ps: As a little squirt at Roberts, I quickly learned that it (this phenomenon we call "life") is "more complicated than that." Now a college grad, I'm still a little squirt. And -- I assume -- it (all, everything, our constructed realities) will always be "more complicated than that."