Whole Rest

When I was growing up in the 1950’s and early 60’s, I took piano lessons from a marijuana-smoking, jazz musician named Eddie Greenberg, who lived on our street. Eddie was a secular Jew of the beat generation who made money playing night clubs and giving music lessons to neighborhood children.

Looking back on it, I am surprised my parents entrusted me to his influence for an hour every week during those impressionable years. I am sure it was because his wife was one of my mother’s friends and a member of our Congregational church. Plus their twin sons were among my closest friends and in my Sunday School class.

Today I can barely put two notes together on a keyboard, but Mister Greenberg did succeed in teaching me how to read music, however imperfectly. It is a gift that I have appreciated all my life. From him I learned the types of notes and also, of course, the various types of rests. For some reason the rests always fascinated me.

The eight rest looked like a lightning bolt, and I envisioned it as sounding like the quiet between the lightning flash and the following “boom!” Shorter rests – the sixteenth, thirty-second, and the rare sixty-fourth rests - reminded me of pennants flying from a castle’s tower. The half rests and whole rests looked like seats or benches, inviting the weary musician to sit down for a moment and take a break. They were like little vacations in the middle of the score.

Today this knowledge of musical notation serves me in my spiritual practice. When I sit down to meditate, thoughts are running through my mind like jazz, capturing my attention and carrying me away. After a while I become aware of my entanglement in thought, and I stop and look for the rests.

There are tiny spaces between even the most densely woven inner monologue. To be in the presence of God, all we have to do is dwell in the rests between the thoughts, however brief they are. God is in the rests – even quarter rests or eighth rests. If you pay attention to them, they expand into whole rests, and even whole minutes of divine Presence.

Such rests are respites from the inner noisiness of our lives. When I focus on the whole rest, then that little black box in the score of my inner life becomes a door that opens into a world beyond thoughts. It is a window into the promised land of Sabbath Rest. It is the eye of our soul through which we see God.

As Meister Eckhart said 700 years ago, “The eye through which I see God is the same eye through which God sees me; my eye and God's eye are one eye, one seeing, one knowing, one love.” Whole Rest is a place of peace hiding in plain sight in the midst of our busy lives. When I am in Whole Rest, time stops and I dwell in eternity, which is the background of our lives.

The phrase “Whole Rest” has become part of my spiritual practice. I use the phrase in centering prayer. During contemplative prayer, when I notice my mind spinning its meandering melodies, I repeat the phrase “whole rest” and the noise stops, if only for a beat. With practice the beat become a measure, and then a line. Whole Rest becomes a cushion upon which I sit in the Presence of God.

There is a reason why the ancient Hebrews pictured God, not in a graven image but as the empty space between the cherubim in the Holy of Holies of their tabernacle. God was associated with the quiet spaciousness of the Most Holy Place, which itself is a symbol for the innermost sanctuary of our soul. Emptiness and silence are where God dwells. That is why Jesus got off by himself to pray so often.

Whole Rest can be found not only in prayer and meditation, but in all of life. For that reason I always end my time of meditation with a few minutes of sitting with my eyes open, noticing the quiet spaciousness of God in my surroundings. Meditation is not different than regular consciousness. It is simply paying more deliberate attention to what is always present.

I invite you to Whole Rest, to enter the door into silence. I think this is what Jesus meant when he said, “The Kingdom of God is within you.” Maybe Jesus took music lessons! Not piano lessons from a jazz musician, of course. But maybe he took lessons on some other instrument from that guy down the street from the carpenter’s shop in Nazareth. 

After all, his ancester David, the greatest of Israel’s kings and poets (and author of most of the psalms in our Bible) started out as a harpist. In any case Jesus certainly knew Whole Rest. He called it the Kingdom of God.

Why I Go to Church

Going to church is not popular these days. That is what every recent study of religious trends in America says. Church is not popular with my generation, which invented the term “spiritual but not religious.”  That phrase meant (and still means) that one has spiritual inclinations, but is not interested in “organized religion” or the “institutional church.”

Neither is church popular with my kid’s generation, nor those generations that followed them. Parents with young children are staying away from church in droves. I saw it for myself last Sunday. After church I went to Moulton Farm in Meredith and saw crowds of parents and children eating cider donuts, picking pumpkins, and taking bumpy wagon rides through the cornfield in the crisp autumn air. So that is where young families spend Sunday mornings!

All studies confirm my anecdotal evidence. The younger you are, the less likely you are to be religious – either privately or publically. Figures say that more and more people are neither spiritual nor religious. I see it in my kids and grandkids. Although they grew up in a parsonage, only one of my three children attends worship regularly and only one of my four grandchildren. And I feel blessed to have that many in church!

So why do I go to church? It is not because I do not see the faults, weaknesses and sins of religion. I know them better than most people, because as a pastor I have seen them from the inside. It is not because I have not thought through the theological and philosophical arguments against theism. A glance at the titles of my books reveals that I have spent a lot of time deconstructing traditional Christian theology.

My religious approach is nontraditional, to put it mildly. My theologically conservative colleagues would privately use much less generous adjectives to describe my present way of thinking. Spiritually speaking, I have traveled beyond the creedal coastlands into deep water. I feel comfortable swimming outside the theological ropes and floats of the evangelical swimming area.

My spirituality is what I call unitive awareness. Historically it has been called mysticism or contemplative prayer. It is about union with God and experiential oneness with Christ. I am more interested in pointing people to their essential unity with God and the universe, than I am convincing people to adopt a religious system of thought.

Therefore it might seem that I am a good candidate for the Church Alumni Association.  Instead I am in worship every Sunday – either in the pew or the pulpit. Why? It is because I experience God in corporate worship in a way that I don’t in private prayer or meditation. For me God inhabits the sacred space in a church sanctuary. God appears in the silence and the music and the words and the laughter and the handshakes and the hugs and rituals of Sunday worship.

The Presence of God is communicated socially. That is why Christians insist on that strange doctrine called the Trinity – God as three persons. What sounds like heresy to strictly monotheistic Jews and Muslims communicates a deeper truth - that God is social in God’s own being. God is communicated through relationships and in relational settings … like in church on Sunday morning.

I slip into the pew, and I experience God instantly. God is in the air. The Presence of God is so powerful that I can taste it. It expands my soul. It fills my heart. It breaks down barriers between my tiny personal self and God. My soul becomes porous to the Holy Spirit. Boundaries fade, and God is all. I think that is what the architecture of the great European cathedrals is designed to communicate. It is communicated to me in small New England clapboard meetinghouses.

Can one experience all that without church? There is nothing stopping us. God is, after all, everywhere. That is the meaning of the term omnipresence. Many people experience the divine in natural settings. This week I went into the White Mountains and experienced the grandeur of autumn in New Hampshire. Seeing the symphony of fall foliage and hearing the sound of clouds moving across the valleys is certainly a spiritual experience.

Likewise aesthetic encounters with art and music certainly have a spiritual dimension, which is why the arts have been used by all religious traditions. But such experiences typically bring us only so far. For most people they are natural openings inviting us into a deeper spiritual life. But we have to be willing to step through that door.

In any case, spirituality not a matter of either/or. Church or Nature. Religion or Art. It is both/and. We can have it all. Spiritual and religious are not mutually exclusive categories. They are complementary. I view neighborhood churches as readily available and affordable resources located in every community, designed to bring us into a richer experience of the Mystery we call God. At least that is how church functions for me. That is why I go to church.

All is Well

There have been important issues on my mind recently, and to be honest they have upset me. The impeachment proceedings have raised a dust storm of emotions. The other issue on my mind is the climate crisis, due to the impassioned talk by 16-year-old Greta Thunberg at the United Nations recently.

My emotional reaction to these events has disturbed my peace of soul. This has caused me to look again at the role of emotion in spirituality. When praying about these matters I notice that emotions come. It is right and proper that they arise. These are important issues in the life of our nation and our world.

Then the emotions subside, as they always do. One cannot live in a heightened state of stress. That is a recipe for physical and emotional disease. Yet it seems that we do not act to resolve such issues without the motivating power of emotion. But upon further reflection I see a way to act in a socially responsible way without raising our mainsail to a hurricane of emotion.

Max Ehrmann says in his Desiderata, “Whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.” Julian of Norwich said, “All shall be well, and all shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well.” These are expressions of the spiritual virtues of faith and hope. History – whether it involves the government of the United States or the fate of life on this planet – is unfolding as it should. In other words, God is in control.

Furthermore our responses to such events are part of the harmonious pattern of the cosmos. We are one with the universe, and the universe is one with God. We could not be separate from it even if we wanted to. It is all good, as God declared in Genesis at the creation of the world. In fact God declared our human presence in the world to be “very good.” This is still the divine verdict, in spite of human wrongdoing.

We are an expression of the divine in creation. That is what it means to be made in the image of God. When we live out of that self-realization, then we act from the peace of God which is our true nature. Then we are ministers of peace and reconciliation in the world. “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God,” Jesus said.

When we act from our true spiritual nature, we become instruments of peace in the world. The peace within our souls is expressed as actions and words of peace. This in turn influences the world to move toward peace. That is how God works in the world.

When the impeachment circus or the crisis of climate change – or a thousand other problems, big and small - push us to react in fear, anger or distress, all we need to do is notice the Presence of the One who is behind and beneath it all.

The yin and yang of life is part of a deeper unity. Good and evil are resolved in the One who is in control of all things. All shall be well, and all shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well. As the great hymn says, “It is well, it is well, with my soul.”

Funeral for a Planet

Every once in a while someone says something in just the right way at just the right time for it to make a lasting impression on me. This is the case with an article entitled “Time to Up Our Game” by Dr. Susan S. Silbey, outgoing Faculty Chair at MIT. The article was addressed to her fellow faculty members and posted on the MIT website.

She begins the article saying, “we can no longer engage in business as usual at MIT. Time is running out. MIT, the United States, and the world face an existential threat unprecedented in human history. It may already be too late to reverse the catastrophes that wait as the warming climate continues to raise sea levels, acidify the oceans, worsen droughts, wildfires, storms and floods, and accelerate extinction rates….”

This article did not say anything new. What was different was who she was, and whom she was addressing. She was the head of the faculty at one of the premier technology schools in the world, speaking to a faculty steeped in science. She does not believe we can engineer our way out of this global crisis.

She writes: “But here’s the problem. Climate change is a social as much as a technological problem. Even if we accept the unlikely scenario that fusion is on the near horizon, the political, economic, and social obstacles will not produce functioning power plants before the temperatures rise above those catastrophic two degrees Celsius.”

I have accepted the consensus opinion of climate scientists for a long time. How can one not? All the science points to the reality of climate change and its anthropogenic origin. It is also clear to me that climate change deniers are framing their arguments and fudging the figures for ulterior motives, motivated by political advantage or commercial gain.

The problem is that climate change is just one among many crises facing our nation and our world. To many people it does not seem as urgent as some of the others. But when I read her words something changed for me. I could envision my grandchildren and great-grandchildren suffering because of our inaction.  They may not have a future – or at least not a very good one - if we do not take decisive action soon.

My generation is not taking the problem seriously enough because we are not going to live long enough to see the most serious consequences. We imagine we still have the luxury of debating whether climate change is real. We are more concerned about the stock market and whether our party will win the next election. Healthcare costs are more urgent for us than the health of our planet. Gun violence is more important than violence against the environment.

I think that historians will say that we put the most important issue of our time on the back burner because of our short-sidedness and selfishness. I hope I am wrong. Recently Time magazine devoted a whole issue to climate change with the optimistic title 2050: How Earth Survived. I hope Time’s prophecy comes true and that I live to be 100 to see it.

But I doubt that either will happen. The electorate’s response to Jay Inslee, the only presidential candidate to make climate change the central focus of his campaign, reveals our national attitude to the issue. When he boldly proclaimed, “We are the first generation to feel the sting of climate change and we are the last generation that can do something about it,” one could hear a collective yawn.  Consequently this clear and prophetic voice dropped out of the race.

Several times during my ministry someone has approached me about planning their own funeral. They felt certain that the time of their departure was at hand, as the apostle Paul described his own approaching death. (Although I noticed they were never certain enough to prepay my honorarium!) I have the same sort of existential dread about the future of our planet. We can see its death throes already in the changes to our weather, just like we notice the signs of declining health in a terminally ill friend.

Recently hundreds of people held a funeral for the Pizol glacier in the Glarus Alps in eastern Switzerland. It is the first Swiss glacier to die in our lifetimes. A memorial plaque erected at the site speaks to our descendants. In what is labeled “A Letter to the Future” it proclaims: “This monument is to acknowledge that we know what is happening and what needs to be done. Only you know if we did it.”

We know what needs to be done. Will we do it? Or should we start planning a funeral for our planet?  Dr. Silbey asks her colleagues, “If we truly want to make a better world, why have we not embraced this existential threat as the single most important challenge for MIT? Why is climate change not the first and largest item on our agenda?”

Why indeed. It is time to either plan the funeral or save the patient. Personally I have done enough funerals in my lifetime. I vote for healing the planet. How about a healthcare plan for our mother earth? How about a pro-life plan for the million species threatened by extinction? How about a campaign against substance abuse committed against our environment? Our great-grandchildren will thank us.

Addendum:

Although I talk about a funeral for our planet, the truth is the earth will survive no matter what we do. The planet is bigger and older than us and will survive our abuse. It will bounce back. Life on earth will survive. But it won’t be human life. They will be the forms of life that existed for millions of years before Homo sapiens that will continue to swim our oceans and walk our continents after we are gone.

The funeral I speak of is actually a funeral for our species. Perhaps another intelligent species will arise in the distant future that will do a better job caring for this planet than we have. According to the Book of Genesis, God gave us the responsibility to “tend and care for the earth,” and we decided we had more important things to do. Perhaps God will try again with a more faithful species. The Lord is – after all – a God of new beginnings.

Shortly before he died, renowned physicist Stephen Hawking - who was no intellectual lightweight – predicted that the human species has only 100 years left on earth. Having lived as a species for 200,000 years, we will become the agents of our own destruction. Let’s prove him wrong … for our grandchildren’s sake.

Bad News

I used to enjoy watching the evening news, long before there were such things as cable television, social media, and “fake news.” I got hooked when I was a teenager, watching grainy images of Walter Cronkite with my father in the 1960’s. Later I remember watching PBS’s The MacNeil/Lehrer Report, and coming away with the confidence that I knew what was going on in the world.

Now I come away from the evening news feeling like I have been emotionally assaulted. Senseless shootings, vindictive partisan politics and mindless triviality dominate the news. Whatever is most offensive, sensational or controversial is put to the head of the show, while important stories are ignored. In recent years destructive weather is showcased first because of the dramatic images of floods, tornados, hurricanes and fires.

The antics of entertainment and sports celebrities are paraded as if they were news. They aren’t! And do networks have to repeat the same stories night after night? Can’t they come up with anything new to report? After all, it is called “news.” I am not saying that all journalism is bad. But too much of television journalism is the equivalent of junk food. Too much will make you sick.

Recently we bought a sofa, which we eventually had to return to the store. The off-gasses from materials in the furniture were damaging my health. It took a while for my physician and I to discern what was causing my physical symptoms, but as soon as I removed the furniture from the living room my health improved dramatically. My sofa was poisoning me.

I feel like the same sort of thing is happening with the evening news. It is poisoning the psyches of Americans and causing all sorts of harmful symptoms in our society. Not the least of which is fear, anxiety, xenophobia, and political polarization. Our psyches are not designed for constant bombardments of threats. These in turn prompt the desire to find security in personal arsenals of weapons and political extremism.

The worst thing about TV news is its corrosive effect on the human spirit. It is bringing out the worst in the human soul and American religion, as exemplified in the recent degradation of American Evangelicalism, which used to be my spiritual home. Spiritually speaking our nation is dying, as any study of the state of American religion will show.

There is a need for a spiritual solution. Paul wrote, “Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable — if anything is excellent or praiseworthy — think about such things and the God of peace will be with you.” (Philippians 4:8) Breathing such divine fresh air can counteract the toxic effect of much of American popular culture.

I am not advocating Pollyannaish optimism or hiding our heads in the sand like those who have been dubbed “snowflakes,” people too sensitive to hear anything that disagrees with their worldview.  Nor am I calling for an Amish-style withdrawal from the world so as not to be contaminated by it. Sin happens. There is no doubt about it, and we cannot hide from it or ignore it. There is great wrongdoing, suffering and injustice in the world.

I am trying to find a counterbalance to the new yellow journalism that is so pervasive these days. I am looking for an antidote to the poison, something more than the inspirational anecdote attached to the end of each evening news broadcast. I am looking for hope.

I was talking to a friend recently. In five minutes we counted five serious crises, any one of which could cripple our country – climate change, the national debt, healthcare costs, the student loan crisis, and gun violence. We could have doubled that number of crises if we had another five minutes. The world we are leaving our grandkids looks bleak.

That’s the way it is, as Cronkite used to say. We do not seem to have the national will, unity or courage to address these impending crises. Or maybe that is just the poison talking. Maybe it is not as bad as I think. Maybe I have been watching too much television news. Maybe this next election will change things. There is always a next election.

In any case I am lessening my intake of television news and relying more on a diet of print media from reputable sources that look beyond the headlines. I will supplement it with a generous dose of spiritual optimism to put it all in perspective. For as the Scripture says, “All things work together for good to those who love God, who are called according to God’s purpose.”

Autumnal Spirituality

As the temperature drops and summer green turns to autumn reds, my spirituality shifts. Living in New Hampshire gives us four distinct seasons. More than that, if you count mud season and black fly season. But I am thinking of the four traditional seasons marked by solstice and equinox.

As autumn arrives I become aware of loss. I am losing the opportunity to take a dip in Squam Lake. I am losing the warm days of tee shirts and shorts. I am losing afternoons sitting on the shore of Lake Chocorua. I am losing open windows and a breeze blowing through my living room. I am losing the sound of crickets and frogs at night. I am missing the sight of loons on the lake and hummers in my backyard.

But with the coming of autumn I also gain things. The enjoyment of fall foliage, the smell of wood smoke, vibrant blue skies, invigorating walks in crisp fresh air. There is also the anticipation and preparation for fall and winter holidays.  I can’t say I am looking forward to winter, but I am excited about fall! Autumn invites us to a spirituality sensitive to both loss and gain.

As we age we become more aware of what we have lost. I am particularly conscious of this because I just celebrated another birthday. It happens every September! I am now 69 and starting my seventh decade of my life. (Remember that we number birthdays by the year just finished.) Next year is the big 7-0. Young, according to my octogenarian friends, but still a milestone for me.

My nine-year old grandson, who is almost exactly 60 years younger than I (our birthdays are three days apart, which makes it easy to remember his age) stares at me wide-eyed when I tell him we did not have cell phones and video games when I was his age. Not even computers! “What did you do?” he wonders aloud.

The longer one lives, the more one loses. One loses family members and friends to death. One day I realized I was the oldest living member of my family. My family’s property on Lake Winnipesaukee – so much a part of my childhood and our children’s childhood - is gone. Sold to pay the taxes. I drive through town and identify houses by who used to live there. I realize that I am the only one who has certain memories. Then you begin to lose your memory!

While celebrating my grandson’s ninth birthday at the Common Man restaurant in Ashland recently, a graying man came up to our table and asked if I was Marshall Davis. I reticently responded “Yes,” careful to put my feet on the floor in case I needed to make a quick getaway.

He introduced himself … and his wife at the next table … and explained that I performed their wedding on Church Island 31 years ago. They were there celebrating her birthday and their anniversary! Furthermore their 27 year-old daughter is getting married soon. Would I mind if they took a photo of me with them to post on social media?

Time marches on, as they say. My body is also clearly marching on. When I mention symptoms to my doctor, she graciously uses the word “maturing” rather than aging. After a while I realize I am going to deal with some ailments for the rest of my life. Middle age is past. Middle means halfway. When I do the math, I realize I do not know anyone who is 140.

Aging is not a bad thing. We gain things with age, just as autumn brings its gifts. It brings a certain degree of wisdom (although I know some old fools!) It brings happiness. Studies show that the happiest times of life are childhood and retirement. Age brings free time and independence (if one is blessed with an adequate pension and health insurance). For me it brings the thrill of exploring the spiritual depths of life untethered from pastoral responsibilities and undeterred by the glare of doctrinal watchdogs.

I am grateful for the autumn of life. Even losses can be blessings. For example my doctor says I should lose weight! So I am trying to lose pounds in order to gain years. Autumn is beautiful because of the losses. The loss of chlorophyll in the maple leaves is what brings out the color! Spiritual insights come forward when one is forced to let go of what one cannot keep. That includes material things as well as career and professional prestige.

It also includes letting go of one’s soul. Jesus said, “Whoever seeks to save his soul will lose it, but whoever loses his soul will keep it.” The New Living Translation puts it: “If you cling to your life, you will lose it, and if you let your life go, you will save it.” Another translation says, “Whosoever shall seek to save his soul shall lose it, and whosoever shall lose it shall cause it to live.”

Our lives are not ours to keep. It is better to learn that before we are forced to surrender them. Our bodies will return to the earth from which they came. The spirit of life that animates our bodies will return to God. Our “self” will dissipate like the mist it is. In the end we lose everything – except who we truly are. I am speaking of our undying nature. Some call it the immortal soul. It is often called eternal life.  

Our true nature, our divine life in God, cannot be lost because it is not ours. We belong to it, and not it to us. The sooner we identify with what cannot die, the better we will live. As missionary Jim Elliot famously said, “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.” Autumn reminds me of this reality. It reminds me of what I gain by losing. That is why I love fall. It renews life in me.

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.