Glimpses of God - Day Thirty

If the thing we call "religion" has any heft and depth to it, if it is not entirely rooted in fantasy, it must call attention to features of our shared lived experience. It must be rooted in what shows itself. The risk of neglecting the religious is that we no longer register and no longer can register these features of experience because our tools for accessing them have receded from grasp. Here’s a fallible metaphor: without religious practices, it's as though we lack the means to tune into the right frequency to hear the music that is always already being broadcast. 

But, if what shows itself is really there, really real, then it will not fade from the world because our traditional ways of accessing it are fading away. The sacred will out. It's not at our command. It is not so fragile as to be wholly at our disposal. The light shines even when there are no eyes to perceive it. 

Of course, a more complete truth must join receptivity and the gift, the light with those who can perceive it. But woe unto those who say, you can and must see what there is to be seen through my eyes alone, through my language and categories alone. Those who say such things would constrict the Holy into their means for accessing the Holy. 

And a softer woe unto those who say, there is no Holy because those who fancy themselves custodians of the Holy have engaged in moral atrocities, idolatry, and blasphemy. I understand you, and share your righteous refusal of the horrors perpetrated by pious religionists. But the world is shot through with infinite light. It is there to be seen and felt. It is foolish to say there is no music because of the innumerable faults of fallible musicians.

Luke 7. 7-11

Jesus said "Ask, and it will be given to you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened. Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for bread, will give a stone? Or if the child asks for a fish, will give a snake? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask him!"