A Note on Gnosticism

Dear Sister, You implicitly asked about the Gnostic experience. Let me say a few words. Modern philosophy, at least since Descartes, has often dabbled in Gnosticism, so you have no doubt read some more or less Gnostic texts, possibly without knowing it. Descartes is not a Gnostic, I believe, but he commits a fundamental philosophical error which paves the way for Gnostic experiences. Consider his famous cogito. He has replaced the human being's participation in the whole (cosmos) with a self-contained Ego. In reading his "Meditations," I keep wanting to ask, "What about reality?  What about the whole cosmos? Why are you beginning with yourself as a separate being?" Once he has done that, he can "prove the existence of God," as he purports to do, but he is left with the famous "mind-body" problem. Beginning with the solitary ego, how does one "get out?"  As I read the great philosophers--say, Heracleitos, Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus--I am ever being made aware of human participation in the mysterious whole. That is the ground for philosophizing: the "primary experience of the cosmos," of the essential oneness of all that is, an awareness that precedes the intellect's activity of making the proper distinctions. One of the most moving expressions of this essential oneness I came across some years ago in Plotinus, and when I read it to students, I could not contain tears. It is utterly beautiful. Remind me, please, to share the passage from the Enneads with you. It will "knock your socks off," using your phrase. The lover sees and experiences each and all in every being. That is not Gnostic, but mystical: the mystical experience of essential unity, a kind of "natural mysticism," or "cosmic mysticism," if we can coin that phrase.   Now, as for modern Gnosis, there are many examples, from Mary Baker Eddy (Christian Science [Gnosis]) to Emerson to a my own college-age dabbling, which I grow out of quickly. Consider a few formulations I came up with in my late teens, for they reflect what is probably a Gnostic experience:  "I created I" was the earliest at 18. About a year later, I distorted the Platonic symbol of "the beyond" to "I beyond beyond the beyond."  Note the break from reality, from common sense. I was playing, but the play was dangerous, and I realized it. The genius of modern Gnosis is without doubt Hegel. In the Phenomenology, he explicitly brings "God" into his self-consciousness. Rather than mystical union, he openly replaces any "divine beyond" with "human self-consciousness." in the long "Preface" to the "Phenomenology," apparently written last, Hegel explicitly rejects philosophy as "love of wisdom," and promises "real wisdom" (wirkliches Wissen) instead. That phrase expresses the move from philosophy as love to philosophy as possession of "wisdom." At the end of the "Phenomenology," after his long exegesis of his experience, Hegel concludes with the "Golgatha of God," of any divine being beyond human self-consciousness. The death of God is achieved speculatively not in a superficial way, but by drawing "all of the divine" into human consciousness. That is a magnificent expression of Gnosticism. Once that is achieved, how does one relate to reality?  Hegel replaces man, God, consciousness with his "system of science."  Extraordinary achievement.   As you know, Nietzsche rejected any attempt to provide a "system," and helped to reclaim genuine philosophy as anti-system, and for that I praise him highly. He knew that reality could not be reduced to a "system of science." But Nietzsche had his own games to play. As you probably know, his "philosophizing" radically cut him off from human contact, and he became utterly lonely and isolated. I cannot read Nietzsche without feeling his anguish, and wanting to befriend him. I love him, but he went down one huge "rabbit hole" to the point where he could not return. That is how I read his breakdown: it indexed a spiritual-mental collapse, not merely physical disease. In reading his works, I can see the extreme breakdown coming, as he divorces himself from one part of reality after another. Nietzsche is a delight to read, a first-rate intellect, but painful to read, too, when one sees what he does to himself. But in the process, he throws much light on modern biases, such as his attack on democracy and "the herd mentality," and so on. He would have detested the Nazi movement, but they used him, as you know, by bowdlerizing his works.   Now for a sample from "Thus spake Zarathustra," from the poetic "Night Song."  I was mistaken. It is in Book II (section 9) of Zarathustra, not Book III. I type this to show you what is typical, or perhaps essential, in the Gnostic experience. Using Kaufman's well-known translation:                                                The Night Song Night has come; now all fountains speak more loudly. And my soul too is a fountain. Night has come; only now all the songs of loves awaken. And my soul too is the song of a lover. Something unstilled, unstillable is within me; it wants to be voiced. A craving for love is within me; it speaks the language of love. Light am I; ah, that I were night!  But this is my loneliness, that I am girt with light. Ah, that I were dark and nocturnal! How I would suck at the breasts of light! And even you would I bless, you little sparkling stars and glowworms up there; and be overjoyed with your gifts of light. But I live in my own light; I drink back into myself the flames that break out of me. I do not know the happiness of those who receive, and I have often dreamed that even stealing must be more blessed than receiving. This is my poverty, that my hand never rests from giving... Oh, darkening of my sun! Oh, craving to crave! Oh, ravenous hunger in satiation. They receive from me; but do I touch their souls?...I should like to hurt those for whom I shine; I should like to rob those to whom I give; thus do I hunger for malice. Such revenge my fullness plots; such spite wells up out of my loneliness. My happiness in giving died in giving; my virtue tired of itself in its overflow.... Alas, ice is all around me, my hand is burned by the icy. Alas, thirst is within me that languishes after your thirst. Night has come: alas, that I must be light! And thirst for the nocturnal. And loneliness.   Night has come: now my craving breaks out of my like a well; to speak I crave. Night has come; now all fountains speak more loudly.  And my soul too is a fountain. Night has come; now all the songs of lovers awaken.  And my soul too is the song of a lover. Thus sang Zarathustra.

It Moves to Consciousness

Write.  Seek to articulate what is as yet a fairly vague thought or awareness in consciousness. Make it more explicit, clearer, and understand what it is you are thinking rather unthinkingly. Help it to come to understanding through writing.

It is the issue. Beyond all knowables, beyond everything or being intended by rational consciousness, there is the mysterious whole in which each and all are immersed. It presses in ever so quietly, gently, and yet it is the all-encompassing. But more dominant acts of consciousness--not only feelings, but thoughts about things--can keep unseen, unknown, the ever-present background to every moment.
 
There are moments that may serve as windows into it, or doors of perception, if we should but attend. It is steady and sure, but our attention to it is fleeting at best. But moments arise when we may wonder, “Why did I remember that right now?” or “Why did that thought occur to me?”  I find myself often asking such questions, because I am puzzled by the sudden and unseen arrival of memories or thoughts into consciousness. They just show up to the party, so to speak, seemingly uninvited guests. These are not intrusive or obnoxious guests, but puzzling, curious reminders that every mind is immersed in a reality far greater than one can conceive, or know, or understand. It goes on, whether we attend or not. It is here always. One sees no beginning or end, but recognizes that it is, and that everything else, every moment, every being-thing, is as it were a little piece of wood floating on a vast and unfathomably deep ocean.

Is it the case that it moves one to think certain thoughts, to explore in some directions rather than others? Or more essentially: Does it come to consciousness in one’s consciousness? Is it pressing to be known, to be recognized, to come to consciousness in the consciousness of a human being?  Is man the being in whom it gains clarity, luminosity, awareness?
 
In truth, I do not know. But I sense a pressing into me at times, a very gentle movement of a kind of spirit into spirit. But it is not “a spirit,” or anything, or a being. I do not even want to call it “God,” or “Being.” It simply is what it is, unlimited and mysterious, ever-present. It may arrive with the dawning of morning light; or in the first awareness of fresh love; or a moment when insight is given, and one begins to understand anew, or more clearly.

“Write.” “What shall I write?” Let it emerge into consciousness if and as it wills. Do not seek to force it in any direction. Allow it to speak, as it were, simply by being what it is. No name is needed, just quiet attending.  It is far too vast for any consciousness, and yet it can illumine, and become illuminated in the process of one’s free cooperation. “I did not ask for this.”  “No, but you can let it happen, or refuse to attend, and prevent its coming to mind.”  

Here and now it presses to discovery, and yet it is always present, and forms the entire matrix, the womb, as it were, in which all else comes into being and passes away. Perhaps it was here before the gods came to be, before the starry heavens, before plant life and animals arose. Perhaps the gods are expressions of it, or manifestations of it to us, I do not know.  “I do not know much about gods...”

Words can reveal, words can obscure. Perhaps words do both at once: as they reveal something, they also obscure, eclipsing from consciousness what is yet unseen, unthought, or unspoken. And that is why, or one reason why, consciousness must return again and again from words into the undifferentiated light-darkness, into the mysterious presence of it.  “Let it be.” Return to the surface and to the depths.  In-between we have words, and words reveal and obscure at the same time.  

And yet, it brings forth speech in human consciousness. It presses on and inspires, moves one to break forth into song, into words, into dance, into love. It presses, invites, and we may or may not respond. The question arises--I know not from where--”Who are you, LORD?” The answer to Moses remains for me a pointing to, an indication that it ever remains beyond the knowable, even beyond god: “Ehyeh asher Ehyeh,” “I AM that I AM.” All words, all names, fall short, and a responsible human being, a responding consciousness, needs to be ever-conscious of one’s profound ignorance before the mystery of reality, before it, before the divine abyss.  

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Begin anew, ever anew. Let go of the sides of the pool, and venture out in deeper water. Or leave the shore behind, and launch out into the deep where you know-not-what awaits you. Creatures of a day, we long to know and to be known, to love and to be loved, but the greatest adventure is to venture forth, to leave one’s home, even one’s self, and follow the pull into one-knows-not-what. It beckons, it draws, it pulls: one may follow, or refuse. “Qui incipit amare incipit exire.”  “He who begins to love begins to leave.” What is left was passing away; what one enters into is never exhausted, ever fresh, alive with more than biological life. Words are failing me, because no words are adequate to it. And yet we make the attempt, aware of our relative dimness, and ever-missing-the-mark.  Our task is to venture forth.  “Not fare well, but fare forward, voyager.”

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Moses is hungry, so I will give him an egg. But I need to return, to let it arise into consciousness, if and as it wills.

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It arose into consciousness some years ago, when I was nine or ten, living in Hawaii. Standing in the backyard to our home, my attention was arrested. I looked at the sun above, and thought, “It was always here. It was here before me, and it will be here after me.”  And I thought, “It has to be, but I did not have to be.”  That the sun “did not have to be” is not the relevant matter. The thought about the sun served its purpose, as I became aware of being a passing part of a mysterious whole. It moved me to consciousness, to a loving awareness, and to a feeling of joy and gratitude for being alive at all.  “I did not have to be.”  And yet, there it was, here I am.  

Why does one become conscious of it here and now, and not at other times? What allows it to come forth into consciousness?  Is it ever coming forth into consciousness, even forming consciousness perhaps from moment to moment, and yet one does not know it? For an unknown reason, Hamlet’s words come to mind: “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in our philosophy.” Indeed, philosophy is “love of wisdom,” and it is ever incumbent upon love to be aware that it does not know well what it loves, but must seek to know more, to know better, to know more truly.  

Why now? Or why not now? Where has it gone? To what has it receded? Why do I not now sense it, or see it, or feel it, or know it?  Ah, it is far too vast and too vital for my partial awareness. “Do not fear, little soul, for it cannot go away, but is ever present, known or unknown.”  It moves me to seek, to explore, to wonder, to write. 

At Dawn

 

It grows light. It is becoming lighter. The world, the cosmos, lightens in dawn. The mind responds to the growing light with peace, gratitude, quiet joy, and expectancy. What is arriving, what is slowly dawning forth?  Much is unknown. The sun gives light, but has not yet appeared from behind the mountains. It grows lighter. It is waking up. And the mind awakens, too:  watching and waiting. It comes into consciousness, and recedes, each moment fresh and alive.  It is only a part of the whole that one sees in a moment, but that part awakens a desire to see more, to see the whole, and to know it as it is. But one must be patient, not grasping, for it unfolds or becomes or arrives as it wills. It is alive with wonders and seeming possibilities. Too vast, too unknown, too mysterious for a name.  It arouses wonder, incites or invites curiosity. What is this that happens now, that arrives yet is here, grows lighter now, but will darken again in time? This part, this member, wonders.  You are here.

The Good Shepherd

 

“The LORD is my Shepherd; I shall not want.” Both historically and in popular devotion, there are few images of God and of Jesus that have as much emotional appeal as the image of the Good Shepherd. Historically, the oldest physical images of Jesus, found in Roman catacombs, present Jesus as a shepherd, often with a lamb on his shoulders. The likeness was drawn from the Greek tradition of the gods Apollo and Hermes. In popular devotion, Jesus is often depicted as a shepherd with sheep or lambs, seemingly intended to communicate the Lord’s gentle care for his disciples, including his “little ones.”   “I AM the good shepherd; the good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep” (John 10). The evangelist John explicitly borrows language from God’s revelation to Moses at the burning bush (I AM) with a theme developed in the prophets, and especially in Ezekiel, in which God says “I myself will shepherd my sheep.”  In Ezekiel and in John, the point is made that human shepherds--including political and religious leaders--have failed, or not fulfilled their proper function. Shepherding by God and by Christ in effect eclipses the work of human leaders who have not protected, tended, nourished those in their care.

Several questions which may arise include the following: Who is actually the Good Shepherd, God or Jesus? The question itself points towards the Christian awareness that the unknown God presents Himself in and through Jesus Christ, who becomes the representative and agent of the God who Jesus calls “Abba,” Father.  Hence, Jesus can say (in John’s Gospel), “He who has seen me has seen the Father,” and so on. Christ is the means through which God shepherds humankind. A second question arises: How does God, or God-in-Christ, shepherd humankind? What does this mean?

An inquiry into the meaning of God or Christ as “the good shepherd” ought to serve as the orienting question for this week-end’s homily. One meaning is clear and ought to be kept in mind at the outset: Not only did Christ reject for himself all political and religious authority/power, but he made himself utterly defenseless and powerless, and willingly “laid down his life for the sheep.” The self-sacrificial death of Christ to bring us into the life of God is the essential action of Christ as “the good shepherd.” The reign of God-Christ-the Spirit in the human soul, in the open heart, is the essential ground for the ongoing shepherding of God for His people. The Kingdom of God is not outward rule and power, but inward guidance, drawing, leading into true life.

Rambling Meditation of a Tired Man - Draft 1

All speech is problematic in various and diverse ways, but a number of major problems show up in speech about “the spiritual realm,” that is, the in-between of consciousness.  I am ever mindful of the words of St. Thomas Aquinas on God:  “We cannot say what God is, but only what God is not.”  

Although I use the word “God” while doing my public duties as a priest, and in my private prayer and thought, I am ever aware that both “I” and “God” are highly problematic words. They are not wholly convincing words.  Neither “I” nor “God” speaks about a concrete reality, or a “thing,” nor even an existent being.  Leaving “I” aside for the time being, consider the word “God.”  When “I” use it, when “God” is used in much speech and prayer, a non-existent reality is intended, or spoken about.  “God” is non-existent reality in the sense that “God” does not exist in the proper sense of “exist.”  To exist is to “stand out,” to be in space-time, to be a being or a thing, or a process, or a quality, and so on.  The word “God” intends no existing being or thing or quality.  

That speech about God is necessarily analogous must be born in mind.  The meaning of ordinary words must be “stretched” in a fully extraordinary way to speak of “God,” and that truth shows up immediately in such a statement as “God exists.”  For more precisely, “God” does not exist, but is; and what is, is not a being, even “God,” but “esse per se subsistens”, quoting St. Thomas:  be-ing (to be) subsisting through itself.  God is not a god, not a being, and so on.  As I summarized years ago:  Deus nihil.  God is nothing, no-thing.  

Begin again.  In consciousness I experience neither the reality of “I,” nor the reality of “God.”  In being conscious, one is conscious of beings and things “outside” of one’s body, but also conscious of being conscious, aware that one is aware.  I am conscious neither of “I,” nor of God. “God” symbolizes the “beyond” of consciousness, as well as “the ground of being,” the ultimate cause of what exists.  As the “beyond” of consciousness, what one experiences is, at least at times, a moving into consciousness and forming it, but not becoming a direct or knowable object of consciousness.  The divine that presents itself in consciousness is experienced as a movement or process or even as a quality such as “light,” “peace,” “joy,” but not in any way that one could say, “I know God.”  What presents itself arrives along with the awareness that it is reaching in from the beyond of consciousness, beyond the horizons of one’s awareness, so that one cannot in truth say, “I am experiencing God.”  For one to claim that “I experience God” mistakes the part for the whole--the process experienced for the whole of what is ever beyond consciousness.

Begin yet again, for I am not feeling the truth of what I am writing.  I am not “seeing” as I write, but in part remembering. I cannot here and now summon up an experience of divine presence, but I can summon up remembrances of past experiences.  My mind is powerless to produce an awareness of the divine presence, is it not? I can respond to movements in consciousness, but awareness cannot create or cause these movements. They come when they come. And yet, as noted, I can remember, and respond now to experienced-reality remembered now.  I can say, for example, “I love you,” to that which stirred or guided or illuminated in years past.  

Do I really understand that about which I am writing?  Not really.  I grope in semi-darkness, in twilight.  And that is the story of my life, perhaps.  And yet, because I do not see all, or see well, I will not stop looking, gazing, wondering, seeking.  One seeks because he is moved to seek.  One seeks “God” because the divine partner moves one to seek.  That is what I learn from Plato, Aristotle, Anselm, Voegelin.  “We love because he first loved us,” as St. John states the matter.  Love for God is not affection or feeling primarily, and perhaps not even choice of some abstraction called “the will.”  Love for God is a joyful response, a search, for that which moves one to search.  It is a “yes-saying” to the direction in which one is moving, not in space-time, but in consciousness:  from nothingness or at least less-being into a fuller mode of being, from relative darkness into relatively greater light, from less eudaimonia to more eudaimonia.  (Eudaimonia, a Greek word usually translated as “happiness,” means more literally good-spiritedness, or being in the good [divine] spirit).  There is indeed direction, movement, in consciousness, from relative opacity to relative clarity, from some dis-ease to greater ease, from strife towards peacefulness. The direction points towards the divine partner which moves and seems to cause consciousness, although the cause is unseen.  

By “God” I mean “You.”  You beyond all words, names, thoughts, feelings. You in whom my “I” rests contentedly, “like a weaned child in his mother’s arms.”  You are “known” by moving me towards You, and yet You never appear to my wondering eye “in all of your glory.”  You let the light of You gently illumine my mind or consciousness, so that I see, and am aware of seeing, but You whom I long to see I do not see or know or feel. “In your light we see light,” quoting from a psalm often quoted by St. Thomas.  When one is conscious, one is conscious in and through the light that You let fall into the “soul,” into consciousness. You are the light, unseen.

“Who are you, LORD?”  That is ever for me the Question, the great and persistent question of my life.  I hear it in Moses, in Paul, in the wondering of the Apostles before Jesus.  If I am not mistaken, it is the question of Plato, of Aristotle, of Plotinus, of Anselm, and of all of the seekers of truth I so love and respect.  What I want is not a “this,” or a “that,” not a particular you, but You who form all by moving into, guiding, even hiddenly.  You are unseen, yet present; real, but no thing.  “You are the joy of my heart,” many souls say, whether in words or in feelings or in inarticulate speech.  

When I hear, I am hearing by and with You. When I see, I am seeing with You.  (But I will not make the gnostic claim of Emerson, that “the mind of the Creator shoots through my eyes,” or some such over-reaching claim.)  And yet, Martin Buber is surely right:  “In every you we meet, we gaze towards the train of the eternal You.”  Yes, indeed.  You are the ever-present non-present forming consciousness at every moment, “the life of my life,” in St. Augustine’s apt phrase.  

A soul, a mind, opens to You by faith, but lives in You and to You by love. This is the “fides caritate formata,” of which St. Thomas wrote:  faith formed (or enlivened) by charity.  Fides informata, unformed faith, is mere belief, even religious belief.  But faith formed by charity gives life to the spirit, for it opens up the soul to the life, the mind, of the Creator--that which is, creating, forming, moving.

Return to earth.  Return to the truth of concrete experience, here and now.  It is not “I” that “I” experience, but a movement between what I call “I” and You, the divine Partner.  My “I” is not, cannot be, alone, apart from You, for You are that which enlivens, in-breathes, forms, guides consciousness from moment to moment.  You cause consciousness now, and only now, as You are only now.  Neither past nor future, but now.  Eternal now, eternally present.

Make it simpler:  Beauty in all that I experience as beautiful, Love in every act of loving, Knowing in all knowing: You. Apart from You, without You, I would not be at all. I am to the extent that I am in You.  In myself alone I am nothing, “a mere breath that passes, never to return.”  But not even that.  In myself I do not exist, or have any being at all.  All that is, to the extent that it is, is in You. That is just the way it is. To move into You is greater life, light, peace, joy; to move away is growing darkness, decay, unrest. Reality is indeed heavily tilted towards You.  All that is, is, only because it is in You.  

As I write, I see You stirring in me, but I cannot in truth say that I “feel” You. The sense is more an awareness, a trusting, loving awareness that You, ever-beyond, are ever-present. There is no present that You are not forming now.  What shall I ask You now?  I do not know what to ask, as my body and mind feel so tired.  But I can rest thankfully in an aware unawareness that You are here.  “O night more lovely than the dawn:” “amada en el amado transformada,” borrowing from St. John of the Cross.  

You have shown me You in others, on their faces, in their voices.  You have shown me You radiant in the mind of a philosopher, suffering yet glorious on the face of a dying man, most humble and gentle in a little creature.  You have shown me You hiddenly, and filled me with joy in your presence.  

Those who claim to know, may miss the hidden beauty known in unknowing, but loved.  It is love, not knowledge, that joins You to me, to every you. And yet, when You will, You cast a glance into consciousness, making it radiant with your utterly dark light--your “light” that is seen as darkness by our unknowing minds.   And that indeed is the “night more lovely than the dawn.”  To be dark in You is beauty more than seeing any thing. To be lost in You is to be found in truth. To be only in You, and not in any thing, surely not “in oneself,” is “eternal life,” true life.  Not to exist at all, but to be love in the divine Lover: that is life indeed.  When the self is selfless, and the I not an I at all, then “God is all in all.”  Not yet, not for this passing being.  But the direction is clear to me, the movement real:  from here, to There, from a being-thing into no-thing. 

 “And all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well,” “when the fire and the rose are one.”  

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Rambling words, not well thought out or organized, but jotted down in part to engage in loving the One unfolding as presence in consciousness.  No knowledge, no revelation, no certainty, no creed, just a desire to respond to what moves me, here and now. 

Dog Tales For Persons Without Tails

1 Zoe and Kate                                                Several months ago a parishioner came to visit me in the rectory to help with paperwork.  Lacking a baby sitter for her youngest child, a girl of about three, she brought Kate along with her. If Kate is able to remember early events in future years, she may recall her adventure with Zoe, my seven-year old female black Lab. But I suspect that the little girl’s recounting of what happened would be quite transformed in order to make the human being look superior, the dog appear as a mindless creature. After all, in time the girl will be told that human beings are indeed the intelligent beings, and in the Church she will be told that humans have “immortal souls,” but that animals die and return to earth. And Kate may believe such tales. But if she could remember what really happened during that three-hour visit, she may be forced to admit a little human humility before the wonders of the dog world. When Kate came to the rectory door in her cute and clean snowsuit, she had no idea what she would encounter. Two large black Labs, each one weighing much more than she did, surrounded her at the door, whirlwinds in black, swirling around her, licking her face, tasting her snow suit, pushing against her little body, and letting the girl know at once who rules in this house. Moses gave her a few good kisses, but when she began to cry, he quickly and quietly withdrew to the quieter world of the living room sofa.  Zoe stayed with the girl to  keep an eye on her, and to play with her. Within a couple of minutes, Kate’s mother and I were settling down to work at the dining room table. Kate’s large bag of toys, snacks, and blankets was set on the floor. That lasted for less than a minute. Zoe charged the bag, threw her muzzle into it, and began to empty its contents onto the living room floor:  blanket, toys, blocks, treats, water bottle. Kate cried, with little screams piercing our ears. Her mother repacked the bag, and placed it on the table near us, presumably away from Zoe. But there was a problem. Kate wanted her stuff. She cried. So the bag was set on the sofa next to her, but zipped closed to keep dogs out. Moses got the message, and withdrew yet again, this time to the quiet of the bedroom. Zoe accepted the challenge. Kate pulled a small blanket out of her bag; Zoe ripped the blanket out of her hands, and ran around the living room, trailing the blanket from her mouth. Soon the blanket was wet with saliva. Then Zoe dropped the blanket, because Kate had pulled a wonderful-looking toy out of the bag. Kate held the toy in her hand for a few seconds. Zoe lurched across the room, grabbed the green dinosaur from Kate’s hands, and began to test the toy’s strength. Kate shrieked. Zoe had already pierced the dinosaur with her canines, but I took the wounded dinosaur from Zoe’s mouth, and replaced it into Kate’s bag. Then the little girl pulled out some wooden blocks to play with, each with a letter on it. One block lasted no longer than ten seconds, before it was split by Lab jaws. Another one met a set of teeth chewing into it to enjoy the flavors of the little girl. Now Kate was   sobbing. So her mother put the toys back into the bag, and zipped it up. Zoe waited patiently for a few moments. Kate’s mother made a mistake. She gave the girl a granola bar to quiet her down. Zoe loves granola bars. So they shared the bar, the girl and Zoe. Or rather, Zoe tore the whole bar from Kate’s mouth, and quickly devoured it. More screams. I told Zoe to leave the child alone. And she did, for a few minutes. But then Kate decided to walk across the living room towards her mother. Another mistake. Zoe was on her, letting her know in whose room she was walking. The girl could not move without being out-maneuvered by a creature about twice her age, twice her weight, and more than twice the woman she was. Kate was as dominated as Zoe’s brother’s had been in the litter, when I first saw the pup at 8-weeks old. Kate returned to the sofa and pouted.  She had been utterly controlled by a dog. In time, Kate may remember the adventure, but probably not. Surely it is difficult, even humiliating, for a human being to learn their proper place in the scheme of things--especially from a mere dog.  In time, Kate will think, “I am Woman,” and she may feel utterly superior, not only to some of us, but to all “dumb animals.”  Zoe will turn gray, and in her time she will go the way of all flesh.  Zoe will receive her eternal reward, and crowned with glory, we trust, for teaching human beings to be a little more humble, and not to take ourselves so seriously.

"Feed My Sheep"

 

 The accounts of appearances by the Resurrected Christ in the letters of the Apostle Paul and in the canonical Gospels are truly priceless.  I know of only one event in the unfolding of history that can be compared to these visions of Christ raised:  the account of Moses encountering the unknown God--”I AM that I AM”--through the burning bush. History is indeed constituted by such divine revelations. For human history is essentially the process of the unfolding of the divine--the eternal--in the souls of particular men and women.  Such divine-human events are the overwhelming truths of human life. The visions of Christ raised, and other divine-human encounters, become in time the nucleus around which human communities build themselves up. The Jewish people will ever be grounded on God-in-Moses, and the ensuing Exodus from the realm of death into life under the true God. The Christian Community, the Church, centers decisively on the experiences of Jesus Christ risen and alive in His people.

At the Easter Vigil and on Easter Sunday, the faithful heard the account of the empty tomb, and faith responses to the event:  “He saw and believed.”  On the Second Sunday of Easter we hear the clearest and most complete brief confession of faith in the entire New Testament. On the lips of the Apostle Thomas--believing Thomas--St. John places the extraordinary words in response to the appearance of the Risen LORD: “My Lord and my God!” Faith in Jesus as truly Lord and God, completely one with the unknown God called “the Father,” and guide and ruler of the faithful, remains the bedrock of our Christian faith then, now, and throughout time. In the Risen Christ we encounter the God of Moses, the I AM, fully present in the man, Jesus, and now active, alive, governing His people through faith working by love. 

On the Third Sunday of Easter the Church listens to the account of the Risen Christ’s appearance to selected disciples as they were fishing. Typical of the Gospel of John, the passage is packed with symbolic meanings to open us up to the presence of Christ Jesus here and now. We are not only hearing events in the past, but divine-human events that do indeed bring divine reality into human life as we listen, respond with faith, and obey. We hear Jesus question of the Apostle Peter, and free him from guilt and shame for his denial of Christ. The one who denied Jesus three times is now asked three times by the Risen One: “Do you love me?” As Peter responds from the heart--”Yes, LORD, you know well that I love you”--Jesus tells him how to put his love into practice for others: “Feed my sheep.” Through the recount of this event, Christ is telling each of us who has ears to hear: “Feed my sheep, tend my lambs.”  Each one of us has some beings in our lives whom we must lovingly tend, and help guide into a deeper union, a living communion, with Christ, and through him, with God and with all creatures in God. Through our faith-union with the Risen Christ, God is restoring humankind and creation. Day by day, through faith working by love, we are being renewed, transformed, even divinized, so that in time beyond time, “God will be all in all.”