In Chinese Taoism, God is simply "the Way." A deep and wonderful mystery:
The Tao is an empty vessel, it is used,
but never filled.
Oh, unfathomable source of ten thousand things!
Blunt the sharpness,
Untangle the knot,
Soften the glare,
Merge with dust.
Oh, hidden deep but always present!
I do not know from whence it comes.
It is the forefather of the gods.
Or, closer to home, there is the Taoism of Walt Whitman:
And I call to mankind, Be not curious about God,
For I who am curious about each am not curious
about God,
No array of terms can say how much I am at peace
about God and about death.
I hear and behold God in every object, yet I understand
God not in the least,
Nor do I understand who there can be more wonderful
than myself.
Why should I wish to see God better than this day?
I see something of God each hour of the twenty-four,
and each moment then,
In the faces of men and women I see God, and in my
own face in the glass;
I find letters from God dropped in the street, and
every one is signed by God's name,
And I leave them where they are, for I know that
others will punctually come forever and ever.
The name for all of this is mysticism. I personally think it is a productive
way forward for Christians in the 21st century. Interestingly, Christianity was originally called Taoism—the People
of the Way. My interest in these strange and scary days of world history is in thinking together about what it means to follow
God's way as laid out for us in the teaching and the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus the Christ. Christians are people
whose faith in God is not primarily conceptual, but, instead, personal. I believe in God because of Jesus of Nazareth. I cannot
"understand God in the least" as Walt says, but I do know that in Jesus I am grasped by Life itself and led toward home base.
Summer is coming in. Nature is in full flower. We have long days and sultry
nights and, I hope, time for recreation and family and the sweet joys of living. I hope it will be fruitful spiritual time
for you, that you will sense that One "hidden deep but always present" and that you will be renewed and refreshed.
In 410 CE, the barbarian warlord, Alaric, sacked Rome and the Western world
headed into a period that we call "the Dark Ages." The world became a spiritual wasteland. Christians, like St. Benedict of
Nursia, showed people a way to hold onto joy and meaning in really bad days. Some of us fear that 9/11/2001 might prove to be a date as portentous of evil as 410 was for Rome
and the West. Fundamentalism is on the rise in all the world's faiths, including Christianity, and with it intolerance, bigotry,
selfishness is rising up. We need to have voices, we need to be voices, for our time that point to a way that is a way of
life and hope for all humans everywhere. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is such a way. Its God is not the angry monarch of Osama
bin Laden or the Left Behind novels. Its God is a God of love, understanding, and forgiveness who joins us all (of every faith
and every way) together as brothers and sisters.
The world is a wintry place today--morally and spiritually. But let us be summer
people! Let us hold fast to the way of love! Let us provide a safe place for humankind, where we can begin to think our way
out of the Darkness and into the Light.
