Whole: day 18

Every breath is a resurrection.

Gregory Orr (from “Concerning the Book that is the Body of the Beloved”)

I am known by God.  

I am being known by God.  

I am knowing me with God.  

I am knowing God with God.

Seeingdarkly and knowingdarkly is not a one way street.  It is a feedback loop specifically designed by Grace. God is with me, Emmanuel, present in my present. Present in my mind and understanding; present in my body and all the ways I can interact with the physical world; present in my heart.  God is knowing my heart into a closer relationship with the Living Love.  

This is an active desire of God: God desires to know more of me knowing God.  Yes, God knows me already, all of what I am and do is already held within God’s being.  Yet that does not mean my future personality and actions are already known in the sense of being prescribed.  I am becoming the woman God loves as Kate, the whole Kate.  

Yet I suspect that all the ins and outs of the adventure of intimacy that the Holy invites us to undertake is not already known by God.  I suspect God can be surprised by whatever God and I might do together.  I hear God chuckle when we ‘throw paint around’ together in a haphazard fashion, as colours mingle, as water drips, as brushes swirl, as walls and floors and ceilings are splattered alongside my canvas-full of ‘happy accidents’.  God enjoys this.  God enjoys me.

To use a different metaphor, the Tao Te Ching says:

“Shape clay into a vessel. 

It is the space within that makes it useful.”

All that I am is the vessel, and God knows how I am made, for God made me.  Yet the ‘empty’ space inside the wonky pot called Kate is full of gas molecules, also made by God, that can be joined together in an infinite variety of ways, each chain suggesting a slightly different ‘use’ or action for the whole Kate.  God may know the theory of molecular physics but God is on a journey of knowing with me to see how the these particular particles react within me at this present moment of my here and my now. 

God joins me in seeingdarkly and knowingdarkly, not because darkly is a second best option, but because darkly is where my heart and the Holy heart combine to surprise each other.

Don’t express yourself too wildly, says the world, nor with passion. Do not show the depths of your feelings, or someone will cut you down to size. They will mock you and call you inflamed and irrational, out of control. But I say, let your wonderful, explosive heart show! 

Let your truth fizz and bang and make bystanders ooh and aah in awe of your expressive joy. Do not hold all of it in to fester and mutate into cold, cynical, clinical waste. Roar with your mind and your knowing places. Sing with your real voice and use all the words available, leave no note unsung. Be you and let rip the cords of your heart and the beauty of your song. Let your vulnerable passion soar, even if it sails over every head. 

Keren Dibbens Wyatt, The Honeycomb Hermit

darkly is not second best. (iPhone image)