Love as the Consent Not to Reign

I've been reading Simone Weil.

If you've never heard of her, that's no big surprise. She's part philosopher, part mystic, and neither makes for a reputation anywhere near that of Stephen Colbert or Ozzie Osbourne. Simone has an interesting history. Jewish and living only until the age of 34 in prewar France, she began as a firm agnostic and gravitated slowly to Christian mysticism, remaining at the edge of organized religion, preferring a pragmatic rather than an emotional or more entirely spiritual approach to faith and wove ideas from Greek, Egyptian, and Hindu practice into her view of the eternal. It made for an interesting worldview.

But she has some important things to say. This is one of them:

God brings the universe into existence by agreeing not to command it even though He has the power to do so, but instead He allows the mechanical necessity of matter and the autonomy essential to thinking people to reign in His stead. His consent to do this is love. - Waiting for God

She sounds like a philosopher, but she applies her capacities of reason unapologetically to God. 

Unpacked, this makes for some deeply affecting resonance. 

First, it allows that God is responsible for creation, not only its physical components - earth and sky and the physics that govern them - but for humanity as well. However, it also sets apart his only thinking creation, humans, as separate entities altogether, given discrete privileges not granted the rest of creation. In an echo of the metaphorical Adam and Eve of the Bible, Simone applies both philosophy and theology simultaneously to what she observes to make sense of it. Physics, she says is what God made it and its mechanics run His universe without interruption or excuse, which is God's customary way of operation. God steps aside, however, when it comes to all matters of will. He has a will of His own, of course, but does not impose it and this, she says is how God loves us.

Then there's Simone's idea of our response to this:

God gives us our being so that we can give it back to Him. He allows us to live apart from Him and it's up to us to refuse the authorization. Humility is the refusal to exist apart from God - Gravity and Grace 

So there is a beautiful harmony in our intended relationship with God. God withholds the imposition of His will, deferring to our independence, and we withhold the exercise of that independence, deferring in turn to Him. 

That is communion. Perfect.

Image from The Drift

Staring at the Sun

 

I have a basket of flowers in my house. They are old and dry, many dusty from fragile years of saving. It's my basket of love, I tell anyone who asks its origin - roses and mums and others given in thanks or in consolation or congratulation or with any kind of empathy that seemed at the time like sweet fellowship. They retain some of their color, but aren't really a decoration. They are a reminder of love given and many times returned. A reminder of the parts of this life that were well-lived and tenderly remembered.

Yesterday, I found a poet who described why I've kept them.

Master, how serene
Are all the hours 
We waste

If, as we waste them,

We place them in a vase

Like flowers.

There are no sorrows

In our lives

Nor joys either.

Let us learn, then,

Innocent sages, 

Not to live life

But to pass through it,

Tranquil, serene,

Taking children

As our teachers,

Eyes full

Of nature...

Beside a river,

Beside a road,

Wherever we are,

Living life

With the same

Light ease.

Time passes,

And tells us nothing.

We grow old.

Let us learn almost

Mischievously,

To feel ourselves leaving.

There is no point

In doing anything.

There is no resisting

The monstrous god

Who devours

His own children.

Let us gather flowers.

Let us bathe our hands

In the calm rivers,

And from them

Learn their calm.

Sunflowers eternally

Staring at the sun,

We will leave life

Tranquilly, not even

Regretting

Having lived.

--Ricardo Reis

Image: Farmer's Almanac

A Spiritual Workout - Yearning for the Life

 

 

Last week, a friend of mine mused out loud that he thought he might give up Lent for Lent. Just Lent. I’m not sure exactly what he meant, but it may be the thought that Lent just doesn’t work for many people and, if that’s what he meant, I think he might be right. The whole idea of giving up something, or even of doing something extra, for 40 days just doesn’t make sense. And it doesn’t if we just look on the face of it. It seems kind of silly. Until we do it in earnest, trying to look at it from God’s point of view.

Jesus gave some pretty simple instructions:

First, He said, "Follow me." The early disciples did it. They left nets and families and literally traipsed along beside him. They traveled and listened and learned. We are supposed to do that, too. 

Then, He said, (paraphrased) "Do what I do." Or more correctly, "Why do you call me Lord, Lord and not do what I say?" That's a good question and I have an answer. Two of them. Because I'm human and because it's hard. But I keep forgetting something important. 

Being human isn't just something "only". Being human is being designed by God in the pattern of God. Being human means that we are more than flesh and blood. Being human means that we are infused with longing for perfect love, unfailing trust and justice, and an assurance that what we endure in this life ends in a condition that is beautiful and complete. It doesn't matter whether a person believes in God or not. We all want these things. The thing is that if we're ever going to get them, we have to DO something.

I broke my arm in mid-November and it's taken me until mid-February to regain most of my ability to do the things I used to do. In the meantime, I was necessarily sedentary and lost a lot of strength and vitality. Now that most of my maneuverabilty is back, I have to start moving  - yoga, dance, lifting weights, stretching. All that stuff. Not stuff usually on the top of my list for fun, but I know what the result is, having been this way before. I will become a person more fit for the life I want to lead. It's not the body I'm after. It's the life.

The same goes for my spiritual life. I have to spend time in the spiritual gym to prepare myself for the spiritual life I want and quite simply, as far as I'm concerned, there is no spiritual quest but the one toward more of God. More grace. More joy. More union. And I'm convinced that's what he wants for me. "The kingdom of God is in you". And I want to let it out.

God will do lots of things for us, but this is something WE have to do. 

So what equipment is in our spiritual gym? For me in this season, the weight I have to lift is restraint. Self control. Self denial. Jesus said that "If any man would come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me." He meant it. The qualites that make this life most worthwhile are not those that amuse and satisfy ourselves. They are the long-term struggles that we can look back on and know that we have done something lasting and worthwhile. Neither doing a job well or raising children is fun most of the time, but afterward, we know we have done what is right and builds up not only our own world but the world of the people around us. 

Spiritual weightlifting is like that. Restraint, that is holding back our power and abilities to achieve something greater, is like that. And Lent is kind of the kindergarten for restraint. It puts restraint in a box for a time and tells us, "Don't do this destructive thing. Do this other thing that builds up for eternity. Do this other thing that will still matter tomorrow and will not build a thing you keep for yourself but will build a thing you share with God."

So Lent is kind of silly if all you do is stop drinking coffee or stop eating your daily M&Ms, but it's not silly if we can take the larger view. After all, God isn't ever small. We have to aim high and climb if we're ever going to get closer to Him.

Image: Terri Gillespie