A Blog about Nothing

Those of us of a certain age will remember the long-running television sitcom Seinfeld, which was known as “a show about nothing.” That is exactly what a blog about spirituality is: a blog about nothing. Spirit is by definition beyond the world of things. Spirit is not of this world - not matter or energy - and therefore not verifiable by the scientific method.

Writing about spirituality is literally talking about “no thing,” not even an ultimate Spiritual Thing called God. God is not the Greatest of all things. God is not the Supreme Object, not a Divine Superman sitting on a celestial throne somewhere “up there.” The spiritual realm is not “up there,” as any astronomer can tell you.

Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, the first human launched into space, purportedly remarked that he had been into space and did not see any God. Of course not. God is not a divine Helicopter Parent orbiting our planet. God is not an entity in space, like Bertrand Russell’s rhetorical teapot. God is literally no-thing.

Likewise the Kingdom of Heaven is not a place, as Jesus repeatedly said. Jesus said to Pilate: “My Kingdom is not of this world.” When the Pharisees asked Jesus about it, he replied, “The kingdom of God will not come with observable signs. Nor will people say, ‘Look, here it is,’ or ‘There it is.’ For you see, the kingdom of God is within you.”

The Gospel of Thomas, which you won’t find in your Bibles but was written at the same time as the gospels in our Bible, has a very similar saying. When asked by his disciples about the coming of the Kingdom, Jesus said, “It will not come while people watch for it; they will not say: Look, here it is, or: Look, there it is; but the Kingdom of the Father is spread out over the earth, and men do not see it.”

God is No-thing that dwells No-where. (For some reason I find myself whistling the Beatles song, Nowhere Man.) Those born of the Spirit participate in this nowhereness. Jesus said, “The wind blows where it pleases, and you hear its sound, but you don't know where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit."

An unknown 14th century Christian mystic called this the Cloud of Unknowing. Buddhists call it Void. Taoists call it Tao. Ancient Hebrews called it YHWH. Early Christians called it Logos. There are a dozen names for the Divine, all of which are merely placeholders for That Which Cannot Be Named. 

While doing my daily walk round the village recently, I was very aware of this ever-present Reality, which underlies and permeates all existence. This Presence is my constant Companion. (Jesus called this the Comforter or Counselor.) A life of Presence is living in the world but not being of the world. This Reality is so obvious and so simple - so omnipresent that it is routinely overlooked.

If we stop naming things, the Nameless is revealed. If we pause the internal dialogue in our minds for a moment, then the Unthinkable is present. If we step back from our “self” for a moment, then God steps to the forefront. If we just stop – stop all this selfness – then God is. This is the everyday truth that Jesus called the Kingdom of God. 

Theologian Paul Tillich called this the Ground of Being. It is the background and foundation of existence. We don’t have to be taught it. This is our present awareness. Everyone knows this intuitively, but not everyone recognizes this consciously. Everyone notices this Awareness at some level, but not everyone pays attention. This is the answer to every spiritual question and the end of every spiritual quest.

This is the Kingdom of God. It is spread over the earth, but people do not see it. It is behind every thought and beneath every emotion. Everything lives within it and cannot exist without it. The universe is born from this. It is within us and enfolds us. It is inseparable from who we are. It is us, and we are it.

In the Christian tradition this via negativa is symbolized by a Cross, which is the center of heaven and earth, where the human and divine meet. In some incomprehensible way the Cross is the death of a human and the death of God … or at least the death of our concepts of God and human. Most importantly, it is the prelude to resurrection and an embodied spiritual life.

The “wise ones” of this age – both secular and religious - call it foolishness, according to the apostle Paul. He calls it the wisdom of God and the power of God. He also calls it “good news” – the gospel. It is what every spiritual seeker is looking for. It is nothing, and it is everything. It is present … here … now … for those with eyes to see.

Unpreachable

As a preacher the most frustrating thing about Jesus’ message of the Kingdom of God is that it is unpreachable. It cannot be directly communicated. It can only be hinted at obliquely. That is why Jesus didn’t preach sermons. He told stories – a unique type of stories called parables.

The word parable means literally “that which is thrown alongside.” It is something set alongside something else to shed light on it. Like a lamp placed beside a book. Parables both elucidate and hide the truth of the Kingdom of God. Jesus explained it this way when he was asked about his teaching method:

The disciples came and said to Jesus, “Why do you speak to them in parables?” He answered them, “To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given. For to the one who has, more will be given, and he will have an abundance, but from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away. This is why I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand.” (Matthew 13:10-13)

In other words, if you see it, you see it. If you don’t, you don’t. There is not much that a preacher can do to help people see the Kingdom, which is already before their eyes, except to say: “Open your eyes!” That is the source of my frustration as a preacher. That is why the Christian Church very early abandoned the message of Jesus and substituted its own message. The gospel of Jesus became a gospel about Jesus.

Jesus’ original message about the Kingdom of God is just too hard to communicate. Sermons obfuscate rather than elucidate. As many sermons as I have preached in my lifetime, they all miss the point. That is why preachers have settled for talking about things like doctrines, ethics … and politics. Religion is so much easier to proclaim.

Sermons can’t communicate the Kingdom of God. Preachers can’t make people see the Kingdom of Heaven, which is all around us and within us. That takes grace. It is like trying to see your own eyes. You know they are there because you see everything else by them. But without a mirror, you can’t see them.

The only thing a preacher can do is hold up a mirror. But many people cringe at what they see in a mirror. It is too honest. So they turn away and search for some other teaching that is more palatable. And so all the various branches of Christianity are born. What is a preacher to do?

As I sit here on my back porch with God, the Presence of God is clear and unmistakable. As undeniable as the presence of my wife sitting in the wicker chair beside me. In fact God’s Presence is more certain, because my wife gets up and goes into the house to get a glass of iced tea, but the Lord is never absent. God is inescapable.

By the light of God I see everything else. Everything is an expression of God. Everything reflects God. Everything proclaims God. Genesis says that God spoke the cosmos into existence. That means that the cosmos is the Word of God – a Word much clearer and more direct than the Bible, where human words and ideas get in the way.

God is still speaking through this primordial Word. Yet people sit in the presence of this divine teaching and don’t hear it. They are surrounded by divine light and don’t see it. How does a preacher preach to help people see the obvious?

The only way is to teach like Jesus. By throwing down similes and metaphors that point to Truth, to shed light on that which is by nature Light. In the end all a preacher can really say is what Jesus said: “He who has eyes to see, let him see. He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”

Sitting on My Back Porch

Sitting on my back porch, God speaks. God speaks the cosmos into being, just as God did in the beginning. The maple trees spring from God. They are Divine Fullness expressed as trees. The flowers are God expressing Godself through flowers. The stones of my old stone wall pop with Being. The insects are Being buzzing – bug Being. They are Being being bugs.

Even the furniture on my porch is Being emerging in the form of chairs and tables. The hummingbird feeders spring forth from Being, providing sustenance for hummingbirds, which are God manifesting Godself as hummers. They appear as different and separate things, but in essence they are one.

There is only One, expressed as two and three and ten billion things. But all are One. Jesus said, “I and the Father are One.” (John 10:30) He said of his followers, “I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one - I in them and you in me - so that they may be brought to complete unity.” (John 17:22-23) He said, “On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you.” (John 14:20)

This is the day. I am one. There is no “me” separate from God or anything else. Just one. Just human being sitting on a porch. I want to capitalize the word and say human Being, but I am afraid I will be misunderstood by my Christian brothers. But it is so obviously true I will say it anyway: human Being. I am Being being human - enveloped in the unconditional love of Divine Being.

Human beings tend to be unaware of Being, but are Being nonetheless. Saint and sinner are both Being. Monster and Messiah are both Being. Good and evil are both Being. As the Scripture says, “I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.” (Isaiah 45:7) Human evil is human being unaware of Being and fighting Being, but still in the end – and the beginning - Being.

No distinctions. No separation. No differences, except on the level of appearances. “Appearances can be deceiving,” as the saying goes. But appearances fall away in my backyard and only Being remains. A dance of appearances, expressions of the creative joy of God. A divine drama of One appearing as Many, awakening to the Reality that it is One.