If we stand before You meaning You
If we have all the prayers and churches and ministers in the world and have not You, we have nothing. If we have none of these and stand before You meaning You, we have no need of any of the rest.
:- Doug.
Archive for February 25th, 2012
The voiced or voiceless You
The point I am trying to understand is that as the eternal Thou we do not have something we can put on a shelf and admire or even pray to in the sense that we pull “his” strings. Buber makes the point that “his” is metaphor, and so are many of our words for God, even often the word God itself: but You/Thou is not metaphor: it is actual being to being address. So our corporate prescribed prayer partakes of this It-making. The only thing that meets is to meet, to say You and mean You.
Further, You is the only thing we have: the betweens, the root fibers, the umbilical. We do not have a calcified, say this and God will do that, do this, don’t do that: we only have the presence to stand within. We only have the voiced or voiceless You.
:- Doug.
God is not not here
God is not here; God is not not here. How can you meet something not there? Because I meet, we meet, not a thing but You. (This is not word-play but substance—meet and see.)
:- Doug.
We cannot have faith in our concept of God
If we agree that God is eternal You and can never be It, if we agree that God is unbound, unboundable and therefore utterly free, we could never that this or that about God for God can choose otherwise, we can never install handles on God, we can only hope to meet God and meet again. Meetings are unreliable, unpredictable. We cannot have faith in our concept of God, for we can never know all about God. God is You and free as we to meet in different ways. No person is ever wholly known. We must go out not in trust but in knowing we own nothing and control nothing ultimately and for ever and so we too are free to meet You. Free in meeting You. Freed by meeting You. Set loose.
:- Doug.
then the flicker, then the decision
I catch the glance, for an instant it holds me and I decide to answer or turn away. But for that instant, there was a noticing of the knock on the door. Not conscious willingness, but a primal acceptance, as a babe catches a mother’s or father’s gaze. You! Then comes the flicker, then the decision.
:- Doug.
