Dear Maria
As I sit to write this letter, all around me my neighbours and I have put up lights to celebrate Christmas. Just why we do this is not very clear. It is simply something that goes together with the time of year, along with other innocuous things like shopping, wrapping presents, attending parties, mailing and receiving cards, eating hearty meals.
But how long, Maria, has it really been since the very first Christ-mass? Does such event belong to time at all, or rather to the very first thought that gave birth to God’s Creation? I am writing this not because you could not articulate it as well as I, but because the one Christ event has become so parochially understood as to have become, in effect, an imprisonment for humanity, rather than the truest and only liberation there is. How things have devolved so much is a wonder to me. Of course, it has taken a long time for the most basic of human advancements to become broadly available again, most crucially among them, the arts of writing and reading. As always, this nexus is also part of the problem. For in looking to texts for finality, the one infinite, dynamic, expansive light of God has to be forced to fit the narrow confines of contextual interpretation.
God cannot be contained in any vessel, congealed in such manner that then allows us to scrutinize who and what God is. God is utter and complete freedom, from all finality, all containment, all definition, all interpretation. What we can do, at best, is encounter God, attain momentary glimpses into the one reality that grounds us and all Creation. That one reality is light—the light of God’s very first thought for Creation and toward Creation. It is this we call Christ. It is the only event which precipitates what we call Creation. All else that has ensued and will ensue are but permutations of the one initial working—endless variations upon a single theme whose central and conjoining harmony is God expressing as Love/Light.
Maria, here on Earth we are very much beholden to Jehoshuah whose utter identification with God the Father, very much anchored the active awareness of the Christ within contemporary human history. It has been a toss and tumble history to say the least. But we are here, and that is what matters. Although the parchments that give announcement to the accessibility of the Christ light for every creature have been cut into bits and pieces, there is still enough light seeping through them to ultimately guide every seeker over the threshold into the utter, pure, creative, and liberating light of God. It is here we finally encounter God, within the nakedness of our souls. When this happens, the beyond reaches the within, the above embraces the below, and the below reaches for what is above. Nothing escapes the sweeping, consuming light of God which searches and touches every nook and cranny of our soul’s existence. Every cell of our being encounters the hidden ground of light, the searing fire of God’s passionate desire for Creation—Love knowing Love, Self embracing Self.
In order to prepare for the consummate light of God, we have the religions, the wisdom of elders and guides (parents included), and the various laws of common human decency that guide us in the very hazardous process of navigating the reality we call life. Unfortunately, life seems to have become that much harder to navigate. The choices to be made are more acute, their effects more impacting. The fact that any of us ever make it into the liberating light of God is quite a wonder. There seems to be a great deal of easy access to those elements that work towards the disarraying of character, integrity, purity, and other aspects of being which are a great necessity in the soul’s journey towards the light of God.
Who is to blame, Maria? Perhaps no one is to blame, but I do think we need the continual and incisive action of Christ in our reality to ensure those who are moving toward integration with God continue their journey and do not get sidetracked from their soul’s and spirit’s desire. It is integration with God that brings about the synthesizing and culminating of the Christ event in our souls and spirits. In every nexus of soul and spirit that catalyzes a conjoining encounter with God, God’s purpose and goal for Creation is accomplished—Love knows Love.
I am not forgetting, Maria. I know I have called the one infinite light of God, Christ. It is so. But it is for us humans of this time and age. The most incisive incursion of the Infinite Light of God into our present historical reality entered through this particular language construct. But Maria, there is no name, no signifier, that can capture and ultimately describe what is of eternity, and what exists beyond the reach of time and signification.
The word ‘Christ’ is Greek for an anointed person. It in turn is informed by the Hebrew word ‘Messiah,’ again meaning ‘anointed,’ but more with the understanding of having been smeared with oil, hence the more literal translation of Messiah being ‘the besmeared one.’ This is why Hebrew kings were described as ‘the Lord’s anointed,’ or more literally, ‘the besmeared ones.’ I am saying this to make it clear that even the word Christ is inadequate to refer to and signify the one initial and infinite light that grounds and holds all Creation within God. But it will do for us in that the Christ event in an individual’s life includes elements that point to the process of anointment, of ‘besmearment’ with the Light of God. For someone who identifies herself or himself as a Christian, the process and naming has particular resonance and significance.
The knowledge of God’s one infinite light did not begin with us humans of this era. We, among many other beings, find ourselves in a unique nexus of the unfoldment of Creation towards the one general direction which is drawing all beings to the Light of God. We come bearing different names for God and the one Infinite Light, yet, is it the names we bring that define the significance and nature of God’s unfolding reality? Is it our insistence on what things should be called that is of importance, or is it our coming as children of God in the unity of love that counts? It is only the realization of unity that will enjoin us to God and God’s creative processes, each one of us a part of the other.
There are other expressions that might help anchor our thinking concerning the one light of God. The early Egyptians, whom I have a deep appreciation for in their nuanced way of looking at things, identified the one infinite light with the word Ra. Most of their wisdom is captured and expressed in stories reflecting the nature and activity of light in various modes of symbolic expression. There is much to be gained from listening attentively to these early stories.
Another useful term for the one infinite light comes from classic Greek philosophy and stems from the word Logos. It is a universally embracive term and therefore provides us with an easy access point for considering the infinite and eternal aspect of the one light of God. This universal consideration is a crucial step in the growth of spiritual understanding. When we fail to make the leap from the finite to the infinite, from the microcosmic to the macrocosmic aspect of God’s reality, we fail to bridge the gap between matter and spirit within the nexus of soul. It is only when we have bridged the gap to the transcendent and infinite that our wholeness is realized.
It is strange, Maria, is it not, that when we hold on to names, we find ourselves wielding swords (guns in this day and age), in order to defend and guard the nexus of God’s being we think belongs exclusively to the particular name we ascribe to? But when we realize that all belong to the common ground of God’s light, we come to see that there is nothing to defend, since all are one. But, and here is the wonder, it is only when we have become aware of unity that we, in that same movement, find freedom to become our truest individual expression of God’s Creation. Our own freedom is attained in unity. We grow in wisdom by realizing that words and names are only contextual expressions of the one harmony, which in reality, does not bear any name, and has no beginning nor end, and therefore has no need for names.
So Maria, it is quite important that we do not take parochial words like Christ, Ra, Logos, much too seriously. We should not sharpen these words into swords with which to cut down others simply because their particular expression of the grounding unity of reality is not the same as ours. In the end, words are simply that, words. They are not the actual reality. They cannot add to or take away from the actual reality. The actual reality is, was, and always will be, what it was, is, and always will be. Only God knows this reality in its entirety. The names belong to us. They are there to facilitate our thinking. They provide us with ways of traversing the mapless ground of God’s body and help us navigate effectively so we can embrace the hidden ground of reality. It is through this journey that we finally attain the sense of coming home, of having reached the horizon up to which finite beings can ever explore God.
The lights are still out there. It will be getting dark soon. My neighbours and I will plug them in, resulting in a spectacle of glowing lights of various colours, shapes, and sizes. The lights, I hope, are a reminder that no matter how dark our excursion into Creation may become, darkness can never overcome the light from which we are hewn, for we are from light and of light. Darkness is blindness to the reality of our light, the result of our attempt to live as individual identities separate from God. The real truth is that there is no separation, no exclusiveness, no isolated individual reality. True individuality comes from a place of unity and mutual participation in the reality of the light of God.
What is amazing is how thoroughly we forget this singular reality. No amount of explaining will convince us of this fundamental truth, that there is nought but one. Our re-membering of this truth involves a catharsis and ensuing choice—to lay down all weapons, of assault or defence. Love becomes our only instrument. It is only through love that we find shelter, rest, and recovery. Light is a reminder that we are surrounded by love. Love in every atom, love is every cell, every particle of existence. The journey we seem to be on is to fully realize love’s nature in every aspect of our being, to know it so thoroughly that it becomes the participation of our spirits and lives in the very life of God.
We will all find our own expression of this truth Maria, but no matter how we choose to express it, the truth is, we are already light, we are already grounded in love. This is our true life, our actual existence. If our lives could coalesce around the one ground of being that is love, in time, we will know all things to be so grounded. When that happens, our way of living will then become a sacred manifestation, a participation in the life of God and God’s participation in ours.
Let me end here, Maria. May the Christ-light never dim in your life, a life which brings me so much joy in its remembrance. You truly are a shining light, a way-shower of how our lives hold so much hope and promise, the certainty that God’s purposes for Creation and Love’s intent therein are quietly at work, no matter what else may be happening on the surface. Through all of this, God is the silent presence with us. We are never, ever alone.
Love be yours my love.
Jarcq
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