My brother reminded me of categories we had once used to describe the origins of religion. Religion has roots in Manipulation, Morality, Mortality and Meaning. Previous blogs have addressed some of the issues around Manipulation. Mike Huckabee has unloosed these issues with a vengeance--does his candidacy have the blessings of God? Is he God's will for America? Yikes!
The great gift of religion is to challenge and bless folks in their quest to find and form meaning in their interior life and their life in community. Last Sunday we sang Of the Father's Love Begotten--the music was composed in the 11th century with a beautiful monastic feel and carries the title Divinum Mysterium. Indeed, underlying and flowing in and out of all the other sources of religion is our hunger for and fear of and joy in the Divinum Mysterium.
Why fear you might ask? Reading the gospels, hearing and saying yes to the call of Christ, bearing witness to one's faith, listening to the stories of saints, we must be afraid. When virtually all the early leaders of your faith tradition are tortured and martyred, surely one has a right to fear. Certainly we may have faith in the next reality, but we don't want to put that faith to the test prematurely.
When I have had visions that I believe are of God, I am grateful and fearful.
Christmas asks us many questions. but surely one goes something like this--do you really want to experience even a little bit of the divine mystery, the divinum mysterium.
Pascal was a french philosopher and scientist. His journal from 1654 describes his encounter with the mystery. `From half past ten to half past twelve, Fire!'Not the God of the philosophers and scholars. the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Certitude.Certitude.Emoiton.Joy.Peace.'
Meiser Eckhardt says,"To serve god with fear is good, to serve god out of love is better, but to love God while fearing him is best of all."
at Christmastime,amongst all the activities and festivities, we celebrate finally one powerful expression of the explosive and blessed confrontation between humankind and the Divinum Mysterium.
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