by Roger Mock
Back in college days I had taken a basic theology course and there was a joke going around that you would only fully ‘get’ if you knew some of those basics. It was a tongue-in-cheek take on this passage from the Gospel of Mark:
Then Jesus and His disciples went on to the villages around Caesarea Philippi. On the way, He questioned His disciples: “Who do people say I am?”
They answered, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others say You are one of the prophets.”
“But who do you say I am?” He asked.
Peter answered, “You are the Christ.”
(Mark 8:27-29)
Someone, maybe a smart alec seminarian, rewrote the story inserting theological terminology:
Jesus and His disciples went on to the villages around Caesarea Philippi. On the way, He questioned His disciples: “Who do people say I am?”
His disciples answered,
“Some say you are the Cosmic Consciousness;
others say you are the Ground of our Being;
and still others say you are the “Thou” of the I-Thou relationship.”
To which the Master replied, “Huh??”
The terms came from key theological concepts by people like German Lutheran theologian Paul Tillich and Jewish philosopher Martin Buber. The joke, which I’ve always loved, came to mind this week when I read a recent piece by the wonderful spiritual writer Fr. Richard Rohr, a Franciscan priest. He was writing about the Christian doctrine of the Trinity and this statement caught my attention and has stuck with me the last few days:
God is not a being among other beings,
but rather the Ground of Being itself
which then flows through all beings.
So succinctly put! This remarkably clear sentence really helps me get it – that concept of God’s Immanence or presence in all of creation. How difficult it is to dismiss this belief that God is a being among other beings. Someone we must answer to, or even someone we carefully avoid because we would rather have “fun.” I’ll pay attention to you later, God, but right now I’m scrolling through people’s posts on Facebook and then I gotta get some lunch. But God is being us right now. God is being every being hanging out on Facebook. God is lunch.
There’s a really cool song that riffs on this idea, called God Is In by a guy named Billy Jonas and other contributors. It begins:
God is in the child’s eyes. See them wide, wondrous, wise
God is in the rain and snow, and each snowflake: this we know
God is in the trees and air; the rocks, the birds, the bees, the bears
God is in the clouds above; God is in each act of love
God is in the oceans deep, some say God goes there to sleep
God is in the mountains high, whistling a lullaby
God is in the darkest woods, God is in your neighborhood
God is in a place that’s near; sometimes it’s just not so clear, but
God is in …. God is in ….
Here’s a favorite line a few verses on:
God is in the ozone layer; holier and holier
God is in the atom bomb, or at least the atom bomber’s mom…
When I read Fr. Rohr’s words I connected it to something I heard a meditation teacher say recently that also gave me a big “aha” moment. He teaches a method of quieting the mind by sensing the body. He said, “When I suggest to you that you sense yourself—you silence your mind as best you can and you put your attention on your physical body—what I am really saying is, ‘Touch God.'” Wow.
Yes, because when you simply pay attention to sensation without allowing the mind to analyze it; when you are simply being present to a tree or a flower or another human soul, Being is what you are experiencing. And it’s kind of like one huge jigsaw puzzle where God is the whole freakin’ thing and we’re all the little pieces. Together we are being the whole. But apart – it just makes no sense because in reality there is no apart.
It seems like all the rest of creation is down with that, right? But we humans – we’re like a bunch of pieces in a pile on the table still trying to sort it out, still trying to figure out the big picture, still trying to connect to other pieces that we don’t really fit with in the way we think we do. Or it’s like we’ve somehow agreed to remove ourselves from the big picture saying, “Hey, uh, we’re gonna try to make a different picture over here on the coffee table. See ya when we’re all back in the box sometime, okay? Buh bye.”
And so every now and then they send out a piece from the bigger puzzle to go over to the coffee table. Somebody like Jesus comes along and says,
“I and the Father are One. And I am in you as you are in me and we are all together. Goo-goo-ga-joob.” (Or was that John Lennon?) And we say, “Oh we get it now. You want us to worship you. Sure. We’ll build a little shrine for you here on the coffee table.”
Arrggh. Humans. A lovely bunch of coconuts we are. Still we are not abandoned, not left to fend for ourselves forever on the coffee table. Let’s come back to Fr. Richard, who ends his article like this:
Our sense of disconnection is only an illusion. Nothing human can stop the flow of divine love; we cannot undo the eternal pattern even by our worst sin. God is always winning, and God’s love will win. Love does not lose, nor does God lose. Nothing can stop the relentless outpouring force that is the divine dance.
And from Billy Jonas’ song:
God is in you and me. Someday God will help us see that
God is in love with love, so live and love and that’s enough.
I certainly can’t put it any better than either of them.
love and light,
Roger