Thank you for today's letter. I really resonated with your perspective on recognizing God.
You say, 'Instead I think he wants us to learn to recognize him, like an old friend. “It was you, all along.”'
I truly have had this experience in my life. More than once I have been pulled away from my close relationship from God and then find myself right back here in this moment again. In the arms of an old friend.
First of all, I apologize for the damage I do to your grammar, as I am writing in a language that is not mine and, as you can see, it is not quite yours either.
Secondly, forgive me for writing and taking part in this conversation between father and son, but the familiarity with both of your ideas, from reading your books and listening to your podcasts, creates this false sense of closeness that takes a nosy like me to pry into an epistolary conversation that should just be read and savored.
That image of thanking the sun for shining is a beautiful way of recognizing what the italian poet Mario Luzi calls "the quiet strength of things" (la forza tranquilla delle cose). The God that speaks in a thousand voices speaks quietly though his creation, in the still small voice that Elijah heard.
Luzi's poem refers to the standing trees, the waters, the adventurous clouds there on the mountains. "The being glorifies itself, shines of finiteness. It is."
Contrary to the liberal protestant theology that rejects the possibility of the "analogia entis", I believe that analogia entis is all the human mind and the human heart ever do.
Again, sorry for the long intromission. Here's Luzi's great poem (It talks about summer, so it may be useful in the cold of Nashville):
Thank you both for doing this project! Talk about focusing on good things even as the world around us goes nuts!
Spencer (aka Wigwam) says, “Or we pretend our religion fixes all our problems”. I struggle with this. I am a beiliver in Jesus and the divine word from the Bible. I do struggle and pray for Jesus and the Holy Spirit to help my unbelief. When terrible things happen, I turn to my faith. It doesn’t fix the problem, but sometimes it comforts the pain of the problem.
Recognition is an apt description of how we encounter God who first love us so that we can desire and seek Him.
Luke 18:35,38,41 NIV
[35] As Jesus approached Jericho, a blind man was sitting by the roadside begging. [38] He called out, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” [41] “What do you want me to do for you?” “Lord, I want to see,” he replied.
The blind beggar on the side of the road was a “paradigm”, an example of how faith and trust must be present before we are able to “see”. Those lacking that desire to see and believe will not recognize the Lord. No amount of evidence will suffice. This is a great mystery.
I know people who’ve been reared in faithful families and communities with shining examples and teaching; yet they fall away and reject faith. In the other hand, so many, who, by worldly standards would seem least likely to recognize God in Christ Jesus, are very ones who come into relationship with Him.
Funny how living life backwards reminds us that we were never alone in our loneliest moments....My Thank you to the sun prescence was locking myself in the bathroom to talk and listen through the window during the rain. That same spirit I felt then leads me till this day. Beautiful memory thank you for sharing.
“It was you, all along.” Wow. You just brought my 3 year old self back into sharp focus. A lawn full of clover...and bee stings. A flowering shrub full of skippy butterflies that I catch and put in a jar to study, and then to let go. And running like the wind, jumping as high as my little legs would allow to try and catch the plane flying overhead. Bright sunny days filled with the ecstasy of life. And, yes, it was God , all along. Thank you for that.
“But I don’t think God wants to compel us to “accept” him—that word has always seemed to me like the wrong one. It’s drab and begrudging, as if God were the solution to a math problem we’ve been doing wrong. Instead I think he wants us to learn to recognize him, like an old friend. “It was you, all along.”
This is how I, too, have felt most of my life, and so has my eldest son. In fact, you remind me of him quite a lot. Even though he works in IT, he’s of a scholarly bent. But I digress.
What I really wanted to say is that I don’t remember a time in my life that I haven’t loved God or Jesus. I was raised in a Christian family and, according to my mother, my first time in church was at the age of six weeks and I didn’t miss a service except for illness until I left home. I was, therefore, saturated in the gospel and hymnody of the church my entire youth. And I loved it! My conversion was a slow and gentle process. It was every bit I loved Him, “because He first loved me.” As you said, He was, and is, my oldest and dearest, friend.
I've been loving this conversation, so thank you both for doing this. I relate, as others have, to recognizing God as well. I also feel this question of the distinction between talking to God the creator and worship of the creation is such an important, maybe the most important, question, in living faith, and not just accepting it. My impression has been that we start in silence. That we put ourselves in the presence of God and ask Him to talk to us. And we do this, primarily, by silencing our own minds in order to give Him space and silence to be able to talk into. There's a great book (that I haven't finished) on this topic of silent prayer called The Power of Silence. It's an incredible read, the kind of thing you can only read one paragraph or page at a time, because you have to keep stopping and thinking about what the author is saying and then contemplate it and let it permeate your soul to see if it fits. Thank you both again for gracing us with your love and wisdom
Thanks for your excellent comment and the book recommendation.
The best way to love someone, be it God or neighbor, is to listen to them.
This leads to the summation of the law and the commandments as loving God above all and loving neighbor as oneself. It’s always first about learning to love rather than obeying a set of rules.
Recognition will get you so far. So you live in a big world with a big sky. Now what? It’s revelation that not only inspires worship but draws relationship. Meaning hovering over the chaos? Sure. A pilgrimage to transform creation? That takes a shepherd.
In initial reflection of these, I thought immediately of my most frequent and earliest recognition of God in the natural world. The first time I saw the Rockies, I asked how anyone could see such beauty and not believe in the great Creator? (Granted my conversations with Him have been invaluable)
I’m that vain, I asked myself how a soul growing in an urban environment sees God, surrounded in such a man-made ‘environment’? But perhaps God appears even more clearly in mankind itself, the Church, the Body, the heart?
Spencer, you never fail to inspire interesting thoughts. You put sonething forth like’ we all feel pressure nowadays to shut off various parts of ourselves. We pretend we have no doubts about our politics so that our opponents can’t take advantage of them’ and my mind just runs away with it in its interesting implications. Maybe our unconscious mind is just that graveyard of parts and impulses that we bury in pursuit of the perceived ideal of what we wish to be, ideal that we built using our own will instead of surrendering it to God and allowing HIm to mold us into who we should be - process which always seems to involve unearthing all that which we wish hidden. I think it was an orthodox nun (Mother Siluana) who said the saints have no unconscious mind. Maybe thats why.
And what an amazing moment when faced with the amazing realization, “recognition”, if you like, that Jesus actually IS alive, present, and active here and now.
Put right out of your head the idea that these are only fancy ways of saying that Christians are to read what Christ said and try to carry it out—as a man may read what Plato or Marx said and try to carry it out. They mean something much more than that. They mean that a real Person, Christ, here and now, in that very room where you are saying your prayers, is doing things to you. It is not a question of a good man who died two thousand years ago. It is a living Man, still as much a man as you, and still as much God as He was when He created the world, really coming and interfering with your very self; killing the old natural self in you and replacing it with the kind of self He has. At first, only for moments. Then for longer periods. Finally, if all goes well, turning you permanently into a different sort of thing; into a new little Christ, a being which, in its own small way, has the same kind of life as God; which shares in His power, joy, knowledge and eternity. And soon we make two other discoveries.
One huge error than mankind makes all the time is to mistake the created for the Creator. As Lewis illustrates in The Great Divorce, even as things or relationships in their proper places can be good, they can become barriers and a stumbling block is made the priority which is more important than God.
Thank you for today's letter. I really resonated with your perspective on recognizing God.
You say, 'Instead I think he wants us to learn to recognize him, like an old friend. “It was you, all along.”'
I truly have had this experience in my life. More than once I have been pulled away from my close relationship from God and then find myself right back here in this moment again. In the arms of an old friend.
I just sent that quote my husband. “Accepting” God has always been slightly off to me, and I could not articulate why. Now, I can.
Spencer and Andrew,
First of all, I apologize for the damage I do to your grammar, as I am writing in a language that is not mine and, as you can see, it is not quite yours either.
Secondly, forgive me for writing and taking part in this conversation between father and son, but the familiarity with both of your ideas, from reading your books and listening to your podcasts, creates this false sense of closeness that takes a nosy like me to pry into an epistolary conversation that should just be read and savored.
That image of thanking the sun for shining is a beautiful way of recognizing what the italian poet Mario Luzi calls "the quiet strength of things" (la forza tranquilla delle cose). The God that speaks in a thousand voices speaks quietly though his creation, in the still small voice that Elijah heard.
Luzi's poem refers to the standing trees, the waters, the adventurous clouds there on the mountains. "The being glorifies itself, shines of finiteness. It is."
Contrary to the liberal protestant theology that rejects the possibility of the "analogia entis", I believe that analogia entis is all the human mind and the human heart ever do.
Again, sorry for the long intromission. Here's Luzi's great poem (It talks about summer, so it may be useful in the cold of Nashville):
Tutto compiutamente
si riempie
l'essere di essenza.
L'estate è ferma,
dal suo celeste occhio guarda
se stessa il suo splendore.
Si rapprende
in piena certitudine
la forza
tranquilla delle cose.
Stanno gli alberi,
le acque, le nuvole venture là sui monti.
L'essere si gloria
di sé, brilla di finitudine. È.
Beautiful sentiments. (And your English looks just fine to this retired English teacher.)
Thank you so much!
Thank you, Spencer! Such a joy to share in your friendship with your father (no relation) and in your gratitude for the one who made the sun.
Thank you both for doing this project! Talk about focusing on good things even as the world around us goes nuts!
Spencer (aka Wigwam) says, “Or we pretend our religion fixes all our problems”. I struggle with this. I am a beiliver in Jesus and the divine word from the Bible. I do struggle and pray for Jesus and the Holy Spirit to help my unbelief. When terrible things happen, I turn to my faith. It doesn’t fix the problem, but sometimes it comforts the pain of the problem.
Recognition is an apt description of how we encounter God who first love us so that we can desire and seek Him.
Luke 18:35,38,41 NIV
[35] As Jesus approached Jericho, a blind man was sitting by the roadside begging. [38] He called out, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” [41] “What do you want me to do for you?” “Lord, I want to see,” he replied.
The blind beggar on the side of the road was a “paradigm”, an example of how faith and trust must be present before we are able to “see”. Those lacking that desire to see and believe will not recognize the Lord. No amount of evidence will suffice. This is a great mystery.
I know people who’ve been reared in faithful families and communities with shining examples and teaching; yet they fall away and reject faith. In the other hand, so many, who, by worldly standards would seem least likely to recognize God in Christ Jesus, are very ones who come into relationship with Him.
Funny how living life backwards reminds us that we were never alone in our loneliest moments....My Thank you to the sun prescence was locking myself in the bathroom to talk and listen through the window during the rain. That same spirit I felt then leads me till this day. Beautiful memory thank you for sharing.
“It was you, all along.” Wow. You just brought my 3 year old self back into sharp focus. A lawn full of clover...and bee stings. A flowering shrub full of skippy butterflies that I catch and put in a jar to study, and then to let go. And running like the wind, jumping as high as my little legs would allow to try and catch the plane flying overhead. Bright sunny days filled with the ecstasy of life. And, yes, it was God , all along. Thank you for that.
“But I don’t think God wants to compel us to “accept” him—that word has always seemed to me like the wrong one. It’s drab and begrudging, as if God were the solution to a math problem we’ve been doing wrong. Instead I think he wants us to learn to recognize him, like an old friend. “It was you, all along.”
This is how I, too, have felt most of my life, and so has my eldest son. In fact, you remind me of him quite a lot. Even though he works in IT, he’s of a scholarly bent. But I digress.
What I really wanted to say is that I don’t remember a time in my life that I haven’t loved God or Jesus. I was raised in a Christian family and, according to my mother, my first time in church was at the age of six weeks and I didn’t miss a service except for illness until I left home. I was, therefore, saturated in the gospel and hymnody of the church my entire youth. And I loved it! My conversion was a slow and gentle process. It was every bit I loved Him, “because He first loved me.” As you said, He was, and is, my oldest and dearest, friend.
I've been loving this conversation, so thank you both for doing this. I relate, as others have, to recognizing God as well. I also feel this question of the distinction between talking to God the creator and worship of the creation is such an important, maybe the most important, question, in living faith, and not just accepting it. My impression has been that we start in silence. That we put ourselves in the presence of God and ask Him to talk to us. And we do this, primarily, by silencing our own minds in order to give Him space and silence to be able to talk into. There's a great book (that I haven't finished) on this topic of silent prayer called The Power of Silence. It's an incredible read, the kind of thing you can only read one paragraph or page at a time, because you have to keep stopping and thinking about what the author is saying and then contemplate it and let it permeate your soul to see if it fits. Thank you both again for gracing us with your love and wisdom
Thanks for your excellent comment and the book recommendation.
The best way to love someone, be it God or neighbor, is to listen to them.
This leads to the summation of the law and the commandments as loving God above all and loving neighbor as oneself. It’s always first about learning to love rather than obeying a set of rules.
Hear, O Israel....
Shema...
Recognition will get you so far. So you live in a big world with a big sky. Now what? It’s revelation that not only inspires worship but draws relationship. Meaning hovering over the chaos? Sure. A pilgrimage to transform creation? That takes a shepherd.
In initial reflection of these, I thought immediately of my most frequent and earliest recognition of God in the natural world. The first time I saw the Rockies, I asked how anyone could see such beauty and not believe in the great Creator? (Granted my conversations with Him have been invaluable)
I’m that vain, I asked myself how a soul growing in an urban environment sees God, surrounded in such a man-made ‘environment’? But perhaps God appears even more clearly in mankind itself, the Church, the Body, the heart?
I enjoy your insight, Spencer. I covet the relationship you two have. I will strive to build a similar relationship with my kids as they get older.
Yes, yes, yes... "It was you, all along."
Spencer, you never fail to inspire interesting thoughts. You put sonething forth like’ we all feel pressure nowadays to shut off various parts of ourselves. We pretend we have no doubts about our politics so that our opponents can’t take advantage of them’ and my mind just runs away with it in its interesting implications. Maybe our unconscious mind is just that graveyard of parts and impulses that we bury in pursuit of the perceived ideal of what we wish to be, ideal that we built using our own will instead of surrendering it to God and allowing HIm to mold us into who we should be - process which always seems to involve unearthing all that which we wish hidden. I think it was an orthodox nun (Mother Siluana) who said the saints have no unconscious mind. Maybe thats why.
And what an amazing moment when faced with the amazing realization, “recognition”, if you like, that Jesus actually IS alive, present, and active here and now.
Put right out of your head the idea that these are only fancy ways of saying that Christians are to read what Christ said and try to carry it out—as a man may read what Plato or Marx said and try to carry it out. They mean something much more than that. They mean that a real Person, Christ, here and now, in that very room where you are saying your prayers, is doing things to you. It is not a question of a good man who died two thousand years ago. It is a living Man, still as much a man as you, and still as much God as He was when He created the world, really coming and interfering with your very self; killing the old natural self in you and replacing it with the kind of self He has. At first, only for moments. Then for longer periods. Finally, if all goes well, turning you permanently into a different sort of thing; into a new little Christ, a being which, in its own small way, has the same kind of life as God; which shares in His power, joy, knowledge and eternity. And soon we make two other discoveries.
One huge error than mankind makes all the time is to mistake the created for the Creator. As Lewis illustrates in The Great Divorce, even as things or relationships in their proper places can be good, they can become barriers and a stumbling block is made the priority which is more important than God.
Apologies for my typos