“From Glory to Glory”
[“. . . (M)any prophets and kings wished to see the things which you see, and did not see them, and to hear the things which you hear, and did not hear them” (Lk 10:24; also Mt 13:17).]
[“That which neither eye has seen nor ear heard, and which has not so much as been imagined, God has prepared for those who love God” (I Cor 2:9).]
[“But all of us, faces unveiled, looking into the (Christic) mirror of Your glory, are being transformed into that same image from glory to glory, even as the Christ” (II Cor 3:18).]
O Lover,
On this day I am seeking to bring to words what would seem to be one of the principal hinges of my life. My context of origin for many reasons was locked into a static mode: a traditional ethnic community adverse to change; little understanding of the development of the self; an inerrant Bible and fixed theology; Your Christ ”the same yesterday and today and forever” (Heb 13:8). For this youth the perceived stability of that Eisenhower era would extend indefinitely.
This orderly world would soon be shaken by multiple challenges: education; a varied theological landscape; the ubiquitous impact of evolution and cosmology on spirituality; the rich tapestry of the mystical tradition; the joy of being seized by fresh depictions of You; the experiencing of You, O Lover, as never before. I gradually learned that immutability was throttling, stifling, and overrated. Both creation and Creator—less than two, more than one—were a fluid adventure for which I discovered myself eager.
The above journey has had me returning afresh to my own faith tradition, and now the relentlessly expanding scope of Your self-disclosure. In contrast to the the tendency to render static the meaning of biblical texts, whether via theory of inspiration, hermeneutical principle, philosophical school, or magisterial promulgation, the Reality who is You is becoming larger than any and all depictions. In the Lucan text above Jesus is retrospectively viewing his ministry as expansion of his tradition of origin; Paul in his Corinthian texts is extrapolating prospectively out into Your future. With You, O Lover, there is a delicious tension: none of our hints, inklings, dim mirrorings (I Cor 13:12), and glimpses is comprehensive or adequate; and yet throughout You are irrepressibly enlarging Your Self-epiphany. To oversimplify, the Mosaic Torah unfolds further into Jesus of Nazareth and yet further into the Cosmic Christ.
The spiritual trek is indeed more a journey than a formulaic dogma, an ecclesial identity, or a magisterial pronouncement. It is an odyssey precisely because You—O River, ever expanding into Delta and then Ocean!—flow within and around us in Your magnitude, splendor, and illimitability. To edit Heraclides (c. 544 BCE), it is You, The River, into whom we cannot step twice. And, as indicated in the II Corinthians text above, our human potential for transformational growth in a way both strange and wonderful increasingly mirrors our unfolding awareness of Your splendor. While You transcend the mutability/ immutability dualism, our awareness of You can and does expand, and that growth both elicits and drives our own journey “from glory to glory.” As the eyes of our hearts are opened and we no longer see “men like trees walking” (Mk 8:24), Your ”effulgent splendor” (Heb 1:3) is increasingly experienced as undeniable. We of the fault, finally, are unable to disentangle our own dynamic becoming from whom we are experiencing You to be.
Yes, the terrain toward and into which You are drawing us, Omega Point, is a wild and eventful adventure, one inviting us to let go of virtually everything, invariability included, to which we have previously clung.
