Or Perhaps It's The Bible

Or perhaps it’s the Bible. Perhaps it’s in relationship with the words and the stories and the. Well, for example. Perhaps it’s in the words of the mystical shmystical gospel of John. Or the mystical shmystical letters of Paul. Or the mystical shmystical books of the prophets. Or the mystical shmystical visions and encounters of Abraham and Jacob and Moses, for example. The miraculous encounters of these. Or the miraculous stories about Jesus in all of the gospels. His miraculous works. Or the mystical shmystical last book of the New Testament, for example.

Whatever it is, you’ve found it, let’s say. You’ve found your favorite passage. Your favorite mystical shmystical passage. The kind of passage that ministers when I was growing up would prefer not to talk very much about. The kind of passage that used to be frankly embarrassing to the ministers and most of the people I spoke with about such things when I was a teenager. Most of them Enlightenment Christians, you see. Most of them Newtonian Christians. Who thought. Well.

Who thought. Ahhh. That only stupid people or only primitive people or only uneducated people or only simple-minded people. Only the doddering old or the ridiculously young. Only the defective people. The people unlike themselves. Only foreign people, for example. Only the great unwashed, you see. Only the poor people. The poor people who had not had the benefit of Philosophy 101 or Scientific Knowledge 101 or The Way The World Works 101 or Extreme Rationalism 101.

The people who had not yet learned themselves much about. Oh. Let’s say quantum mechanics. Let’s say the theory of quarks. Let’s say black holes. Let’s say chaos theory and probability theory. Let’s say the Heisenberg Principle. That kind of thing. These kinds of things. These loopy mystical shmystical kinds of things.

Where was I. Where am I. Oh. Yes. You’ve found your favorite mystical shmystical passage. It’s there underlined. There asterisked. There with exclamation points all around it. Maybe there are multiple colors of ink. Applied by different pens over the years. Different pens and pencils, let’s say. And there it is in your lap. Or if you’re lying down, it’s there on your belly. Or on a pillow on your belly, if you have a sensitive belly.

And here it is. Here at least is one of my favorites. But I have many favorites. I have many that have multicolor inks and that are almost completely obscured by all the silly ink. But here is one: “My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 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. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world. Righteous Father, though the world does not know you, I know you, and they know that you have sent me. I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them” (John 17:20-26. NIV).

And this is of course where we are all going, isn’t it. This is where we’re all led to go by everything Jesus has said. Everything he did. Or says. Or does. Or is saying and doing now. This sense that we are among him and the Holy Spirit and the Father. That we are in them and they are in us. Among us. Among them. Like we’re one mystical shmystical family, so to say. One mystical shmystical commune or utopian community of the saints or one Kingdom people or one chorus celebrating the music of the Father’s love.

One people singing the praises of the Father’s love. That we are loved and that we love one another. That we are like-minded in this way. In this essential characteristic. Like-hearted in this way. Like-spirited in this way. Like-souled in this way. Love-minded. Love-hearted. Love-spirited. Love-souled. That we, all of us. Share the Father’s glory. Share in his glory because his glory has been given us by the son. By his unique and only begotten son.

By the one who existed also before the world was made. And this glory is our joy. And it is the evidence of our joy. And the evidence of our love. And that this glory is a divine glory. Because this glory we have cannot be provided any other way. From any other source. It is God’s divinity that has been imparted to us through the Holy Spirit. And it is the Holy Spirit himself in us. The Holy Spirit himself joining us to God. Joining us and including us in God and his only begotten son Jesus. The Chosen One.

The one selected before the beginning of the world to bring the Holy Spirit to us and impart God’s love and God’s glory to us through this connecting, this communing, this commingling, this unifying activity of the Holy Spirit. This power that is apparent. That is manifest. In us. In us, of all people.

If we’re lucky. If we can set ourselves aside long enough. Effectively enough. Completely enough. To make room for the Honored Guest. The Holy Spirit. Manifest in us. Think of that. How extraordinary. How improbable. How ridiculous. How undeserving. How embarrassingly generous. Even to the world. Even given onto the world.

And as we read this and read. Read it over and over, not quite believing our good fortune. Our good luck to have such a God. To have him make this plain to us. Utterly plain and simple as a kiss. Utterly plain and simple as wading into the waters of the world. The warm water of, let’s say, a small swimming lake. A shallow small swimming lake in August in New Jersey. On the edge of the pine barrens in the sand. Wading in with one’s children on one’s two hips. Wading in up to one’s chest, let’s say, one’s small children playing with one’s hair and one’s ears in strong sun.

Just standing here in all that warmth and love and sand in one’s toes. That kind of feeling. That sense. That one is loved and that one does love. That love is flowing autonomically, as it were. Automatically. Without effort. Without will, in particular. In every direction. And is settling everywhere. Here there and everywhere among us. The sense that this is the reality one has entered into now. This liquid love reality. That this is all there really is. That beyond all appearances that this is what is essentially here. Enduringly here. And that all is well. And all manner of thing is well. And will be well. Like this. Forever.