Observing the Unknown

One of my favorite things to do as a family is to sit on our comfy couch, all six of us, and watch the latest kid's movie release.  Our youngest doesn't sit too still and unfortunately my wife or I will, purely by habit, glance at our phones.  For the most part we are all with one another, fully present to the moment.  Last night was one of those movie nights for us.  Alivia, our 6 year old is entering this phase of life where she wants to know what is going on, like immediately.  She went with the girls to a performance of Beauty and the Beast, and while her sister sat in wonder and sang along to the whole performance, Alivia asked questions the entire time.  She had a similar experience last night while we all watched The BFG   (The Big Friendly Giant).  "Who's that?", "What's he doing?", "Where are they going?"  She can't help herself.  The suspense is more than she can bear.  What we continued to tell her was that we were experiencing this for the first time as well.  "Let's watch and see, Alivia".  Not only did she miss much of the movie because of her anxiety and questions, along with my wife and I, but she missed the wonder of it all. This experience was fresh in my mind this morning as I was reading Richard Rohr's latest book, The Divine Dance.  In the book, Rohr talks of how in the line of Christian mysticism there have been two ways of knowing.

"The first way of knowing, which was more commonly practiced, was called kataphatic (seen according to light) or the "positive" way, relying on defined words, clear concepts, pictures, and rituals.  Christ as Logos, image, and manifestation embodies this kataphatic, or via positiva, pole.  

And when religion is healthy, happy and mystical, the way of light needs to be balanced by the apophatic (against the light) or "negative" way of darkness, knowing beyond words and images through silence, darkness, open space, and releasing the need to know.  This via negativa is represented by the Ground of Being, or "Father". " 

For the last 500 years or so, according to Rohr, the apophatic has all but disappeared from Christian thought and worship.  We are obsessed with knowing.  We have contests among Christian youth to see who "knows" the most.  We have debates and proof texting to verify and in the middle of it all, the negative space of the apophatic is avoided like the plague.  We just can't seem to be comfortable with not knowing an answer.  Especially for those in leadership, there is this great pressure to know the right answer at the right time.  People become restless with not knowing.  It feels like free falling backwards into a great darkness.  For those who may be unfamiliar with the tradition of the apophatic, it feels an awful lot like losing one's faith.

For Alivia, watching that movie last night, unknowing was more than she could take.  For many Christians, the pressure of not knowing all of the answers, the particulars, the reasons, leads them to beg unknowable answers from the nearest clergy.  Unfortunately, there are one too many clergy who are eager to put their "member's" questioning minds at ease.  My wife and I could have done that with Alivia during the movie last night.  The truth is, even though we had read the book by that same title at some point in our childhood, we didn't remember or "know" what was going to happen next.  We could make guesses based on what was playing out in front of us, but movies have a funny way of throwing curveballs every once and awhile.  This is how it is with our faith.  We have some things that we can hold such as sacrament, scripture, Saints, sermons and even experiences that we have received some sort of insight from.  We have the experience of Eucharist every Sunday but as we reflect on this act, we have this unknown of how bread becomes flesh and wine becomes blood.  How when we partake within our communities we participate with Christ in being broken and poured out for the sake of the world.  The more we hold these holy experiences with humility and the less we try to explain and categorize them, the more they retain their power to move us.  Perhaps we have become too skilled in our explanations of what is happening on the cross, at the table and in the grave.

So what we ended up trying to teach Alivia through this experience was this;  You have to take the words and images that you see and use them to decipher what is happening and to dream of what may happen.  If you see something that you aren't sure what it is or what it means, remember it, be amazed by it, but don't over analyze it.  Let the movie play out before you.  Be willing to be surprised by making a mistaken assumption of what was happening, or being wrong about the type of character you thought you were seeing and just hold tight as it is revealed on the screen.

So the challenge for me in faith is very much the same.  We have been given the history of God's people, the first and second testaments, the sacraments, all as tools to learn and discern who God is, what He is up to, and how we can participate with Him.  But let us never make the mistake of believing those things to be God or another member of the Trinity.  Let us never think that God or his ways can fully be known.  When Moses asked, no, begged God to give him His name, he told Moses "I AM who I AM".  That was enough for Moses.  He was willing to watch it all play out with that simple reassurance.  The reassurance came in part through the realization that God could not be fully know.  God is too big for that.  Let that be enough.  It is the Spirit that does the work of hovering between the known and the unknown, the darkness and the light, certainty and doubt, and even death and life.  The moment we demand to know, we rush to know, we pretend to know, we assume the work of the Spirit.  I have learned that the Holy Spirit is a lot better at holding tension than I am.  We don't have to know it.  That's as good of news as any.  We get to observe in wonder and awe at this great story that plays out in front of us.  It doesn't mean that we are inactive. We are active observers, moved by the Spirit of God for the sake of His creation.  We will guess wrong about the characters in the tale.  Some that we believe to be heroes are actually villains and those we feared at the beginning of the tale become our greatest allies and teachers.  But, this only happens if we balance the apophatic and kataphatic so that they exist in a "non-dual consciousness called faith".

So, I leave you with a prayer that was included in the book.  I pray that it helps to navigate this tension through the work of the Spirit.

God for us, we call you Father.

God alongside us, we call you Jesus. 

God within us, we call you Holy Spirit.

You are the eternal mystery that enables, enfolds, and enlivens all things,

Even us and even me.

Every name falls short of your goodness and greatness.

We can only see who you are in what is.

We ask for such perfect seeing-

As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be.

Amen