I received an honest critique of my writing recently from someone who said that they wished I would talk more about Jesus than I do myself. I sat in silence with this critique to discover what it might want to tell me.
I realized that this fundamentals of this argument are that there is a separation between Christ and myself, such that I can pull them apart and analyze them separately. That I could speak of Jesus from a detached observer’s perspective. But I do not feel that to be the case with me, nor do I wish it to be so. I do not primarily know Christ through my mind, through the thoughts that I think about Him, or through the words written about Him, but rather I know Him through my heart. My greatest longing in this earth is for union. To be united fully to the One whom my soul loves.
Though I do not understand it, and it seems sacrilegious to speak of it too much, I have tasted foreshadowings of union. And the beauty of that experience is too deep for words.
From the place of union, I cannot speak of God as the External Other, but rather as Everything to me. From the place of union, “I” am no longer separate from “Him”, but we are one. In that place, God is the One in whom we live and move and have our being (Acts 17:28). In that place of union, I discover that the kingdom of God is truly within me (Luke 17:21) and I am “hidden with Christ in God” (Col. 3:3).
Just as we cannot experience the fullness of the vine apart from the branches, so I know myself through Christ and I get to know the Divine through knowing my own heart. As my heart is transformed by the beauty of grace, when I look inward I see the face of my Beloved reflected in the mirror of my essence. When I look outward, I see the shimmering of God’s radiance all around me.
I understand that this might seem as gibberish to you and that is okay. It is a reality that I tremble to share because I know that it will be unintelligible to many. Indeed, sometimes it is unintelligible to me!
There is danger in looking at our own selves too much, but only when we are looking through the “carnal mind” or the rational methods of scientific inquiry. When we look through the mystical lens of love, there is great treasure to be discovered within ourselves. From the mystic’s standpoint, allowing ourselves to become conscious of the loving gaze of God known to us through experiential revelation and following the gaze of God to the object upon which it rests leads us to union.
There will come a day when our minds will fail us, whether in small or great ways. And yet the discovery of union is not dependent upon our mental cognition but upon the orientation of our essence. If we fail to look within, to allow the loving gaze of God to reveal ourselves to ourselves, when we reach the point of our mind failing us, it will provoke great fear and a sense of separation. When we can no longer recite the facts that we know of God, we might feel as if we have lost the God that we knew, for we only knew Him in our minds.
The revelation of Jesus as “The Word” (John 1:1) in the world is the greatest manifestation of mystical invitation to relationship that I know. Jesus did not come for us to know more about God, but rather so that we could know God. When Jesus walked the earth, most of his teaching seems designed to disrupt the notion of mental assent to truth as sufficient. It was not that the knowledge of God was bad (for it was necessary) but it was not the end point. The law merely served as a teacher to point the way to wholehearted encounter (Gal. 3).
I do not seek to know myself as separate from God, but rather I seek to know myself in God, and to know God within me. I truly believe this is the pilgrimage of Love to which I am called and which sparks the greatest joy of my life. I invite you to join me on this grand adventure!