DStilled

Ineffable Truth

May 4, 2008 on 2:14 am | In Blog |

I’ve always found myself as one of the most spiritual people around me and I think that highly correlates with my finding myself as one of the most scientific people around me. My most treasured value in the whole world is truth. I can’t stop asking myself, what is truth? Is this true? What truth can I glean from this? Where is the nugget of truth in what I just learned/experienced/saw? For my entire life I have assumed that for me to discover what is true I have to assume there are things that are not. This just makes logical sense: If 2+2=4 is true then 2+2=anything else is not. The thing is, life and people don’t work so simplistically or even so logically. Life’s equations are so complex that most people have given up on finding answers aka truth. They seek other truths by other means. I can’t tell you how many times people have heard my thought process articulated and told me I can’t reduce people and life events to equations. “It’s just wrong.” I always get defensive, at least inside, and can’t rebuttal well. I don’t know why I believe what I do, so I just tell them it’s simply how I’m wired. Which is only partly the answer. I’m wired this way so I can forever seek the answer, because I honestly believe it is there. In the past couple of years, I have come to an understanding that the answer is unknowable to humans but it certainly hasn’t stopped me from trying.

One of the ways I can more fully seek the answers to what is truth is to listen to what other seekers have discovered. Here is a video of a woman who explains how it feels to have a stroke. You may not agree with her spiritual premise, but then again, when was the last time you suffered a brain hemorrhage? It’s amazing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyyjU8fzEYU

The other person I want to tell you about today is Julian of Norwich. She’s a 14th century English mystic that has some MIND-Blowing stuff to say. In studying the history of Christians, I’m amazed at how insightful so many of these people were. I’m also surprised at how few people know and even fewer people read them. A couple of plugs for Julian. She was the first woman to write a book in English. She wasn’t afraid to use Mother for God at times. She lived through the bubonic plague, barely. Here’s a excerpt from the paper I just wrote on her.

“For in the sight of God all men are one man, and one man is all men. This man was injured in his powers and made most feeble, and in his understanding he was amazed, because he was diverted from looking on his lord, but his will was preserved in God’s sight. I saw the lord commend and approve him for his will, but he himself was blinded and hindered from knowing this will.” This theology expresses that while we humans may be ignorant of the events around us, God is forever caring for us and preserving us for (His) good will. “And then I saw that only pain blames and punishes, and our courteous Lord comforts and succours, and always he is kindly disposed to the soul, loving and longing to bring us to his bliss.” This is the heart of Julian’s theology.

Because God protects with compassion and is always “kindly disposed to the soul,” this opens up avenues for questions about why are suffering and evil in the world. “But then this is our comfort, that we know in our faith that by the power of Christ who is our protector we never assent to [tribulation and woe], but we complain about it, and endure in pain and in woe, praying until the time that he shows himself again to us.” For Julian, the answer to this is simple: God is glorified greater in contrast to suffering than without it. “Therefore [the servant/Christ] greatly rejoices in his falling, for the raising on high and the fullness of bliss which mankind has come to, exceeding what we should have if he had not fallen.” This reader feels like much of this theological understanding relies on one key principle.

God lives in us. “He made man’s soul to be his own city and his dwelling place, which is the most pleasing to him of all his works.” It is at this point of the story between the lord and the servant that understanding of the framework can truly begin. The lord will sit in rest and wait unsatisfied until the servant returns from the gardening with the perfect food perfectly prepared. It is the work of the second and third Persons of the Trinity that while equal with God are sowing and reaping the field of humanity for the glory of the Lord. And why is it important that we be saved? Because God is not complete without the niche (He) has created in humanity for (Himself). This is a monumental realization for Julian to have and certainly would have resulted in her excommunication if she had not been a anchoress hermit.

As a mystic, she believed in universal salvation that possibly manifested itself beyond the reality of hell - I think. Not sure about how that worked. But she is a fascinating character that spent her entire life meditating on the truth of sixteen visions she saw.

So I say go after it, whatever you value most in life. Learn what it is for you. Seek it in others as well as what other have learned in their own searches. If it happens to be truth, like me, then let me know and we can perhaps journey a bit together.