rishi
The Symbol of Fire (#3 of 5)
Posted on: 05/28/2009 15:35
John 3:14-21 “And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness [i.e., as a symbol of divine healing – see Numbers 21:4-9 ], so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever trusts in him may have eternal life. For God so loved the world that he gave his only son, so that everyone who trusts in him may not perish but may have eternal life. Indeed, God did not send the son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Those who trust in him are not condemned; but those who do not trust are condemned already, because they have not trusted in the name of the only son of God. And this is the judgment, that a divine flame has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than its light, because their deeds were evil. For all who do evil hate the light and do not come near the flame, so that their deeds may not be exposed. But those who do what is true come into the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God.”
I
I have a confession to make. I don't know if it's true for you, but I find that it's only as I am gripped by the reality of God's limitless love for me, individually, with all of my foibles and vulnerabilities, that I have enough trust to really open my heart to life, to really be present to whatever's happening in the moment. I find that it's only there, within that devotional posture of the heart, that I am really ready for the transforming work of Water, Spirit, and Fire. Otherwise they are just words, not symbols of transformation. But when I'm there, in that place of awareness, I can open my heart to the experience of God as Water, and discover that which is false in my life, that which causes unnecessary suffering,
and allow it to be washed away. When I'm there, I can open my heart to the experience of God as Spirit,
and discover my true spiritual nature as the beloved creation of God, vitally interconnected with all life... and I can allow my body and heart and mind to be infused with that awareness.
And, there, I can open my heart to theexperience of God as Fire, where I can actually begin to live out, to embody, the truths of Water and Spirit in the ritual of my daily life, in my thoughts and feelings and attitudes and actions. In that symbol of God as Fire, I discover that these experiences of God as Water and God as Spirit are stepping stones, that are guiding me into yet a deeper, more complete experience of transformation.
This is what many wisdom traditions, including the Christian tradition, teach us about the symbol of Fire. It is through our daily devotional encounters with God as Fire that the actual spirituality of our character is forged, in the crucible of life's ups and downs.
II
The longer we have lived, the more acquainted we are with the fact that life does not happen in a straight line, but in vicissitudes, in “ups and downs,” peaks and valleys.
Experiences of pleasure come our way, and also experiences of pain. Experiences of gain, and also loss. Praise, that is music to our ears... but – hold on to your hat – also blame... where we're still the focus, but not in a comfortable way. And those wonderful moments of fame, where it seems that everyone knows your name, but also those moments of obscurity, where no one seems to know you, or care to. And so on, and so forth... such pairs of opposites just keep happening, life keeps churning them out, whether we like it or not, whether we think it's “fair” or not. Life just does not happen in a straight line. But we often want it to, don't we?
Quite naturally, from the moment that we are born, it occurs to us that the life we desire, life, as we imagine it should be... would only include the peaks (only pleasure, gain, praise, fame, and so on...), but not the valleys (not the pain and loss, not the blame and obscurity... no way!). Even if we never put it into words, our actual purpose in life often has to do with trying to re-make it in that image, trying to somehow re-create life, so that we can get rid of this undesirable bottom half... the downsides... and just have what we feel is the “good stuff” in our lives. And what could be more natural?
But sooner or later we discover that, to a large extent, these vicissitudes...these ups and downs... are woven into the very fabric of our existence. Sure, we can create a story, as Hollywood so often does, where life has only peaks and no valleys. “And the sky was not cloudy all day.” But real life is more frustrating than that, because it always involves these unplanned fluctuations... at least in my experience. For example, you settle down for a nice nap on the couch, and just as you drift off into dreamland, a fire engine races by beneath your window, sirens blaring. Just one of life's little vicissitudes. Or, that person who somehow, unwittingly, is able to push every one of your buttons.... shows up at your door for an unexpected visit... and it's too late to pretend you're not home.... they heard you vacuuming or something, so they know you're there. And these are just the easy ones. We can't forget that ultimate vicissitude of life over which we have no control.... like when someone you love receives a terminal diagnosis, or has a fatal accident... and there we are... and there's just no way to either “rewind”or “fast forward.” And then, of course, there's our own impending death. But whether the vicissitudes are tiny or massive, at these moments, not even Hollywood can persuade us that life is really all under our control, if we just do the right thing, or have the right attitude, or buy the right product or service or experience.
If you have ever experienced the anguish of life's vicissitudes, and have come to the point where your sense of self can just bear no more…. then you have been on the brink of the experience of God as Fire. It is these built-in vicissitudes of life that form the crucible, that set the stage,for this enlightening experience.
As I feel the anguish of life's pains and losses, as they begin to threaten my sense of who I am... By grace, I remember... my baptismal vows... and it dawns on me that I am-–really—not alone. And within that flame of awareness, I begin to see... that no solitary “ego” can survive life's vicissitudes; only God's Spirit can, for in that divine Spirit there is a joy that is way beyond all pleasures & pains; there is something we come topossess that is way beyond all gains & losses; there is an inner affirmation that is beyond all of our experiences of praise & blame, and a kind of belonging that is beyond all of life's moments of fame & obscurity. For in that flame of awareness I step outside of time and remember who I truly am. And I can live... actually live out of that divine truth of who I am, I can live out of nothing less than God's Spirit, that I now know is dwelling right here within me. Life's vicissitudes continue to churn on and on, as ever, (“like sea billows roll”). But I am no longer the same. I am no longer being helplessly bounced about by these ups and downs. Not because I can now somehow control life. But because, now, in my character, it is no longer “ego” that lives and reigns, but Christ that lives and reigns within me. My character has become more resilient, because it is more grounded in the experience of God's Spirit. You can't get more resilient than Spirit. That very same Spirit that enabled Jesus to find peace in the midst of conflict, is now enabling me to do the same.
This is the experience of God as Fire. The conflicts that arise in relation to life's “ups and downs” become for us a signal... a sign... to practice our baptismal vows: to let go of “ego,” and where ego was, to let Spirit be... to surrender our anxious attempts to control life and simply let our bodies and hearts and minds be infused by the Spirit of God. The experience of God as Fire is the Exodus experience, theDesert experience, it is the experience of the Beatitudes, and Gesthemene, and Calvary. (It is St. Teresa's transforming Wound of Love. It's the fiery battle of the Buddha with Mara, where Mother Earth herself brings the conflict to an end. It is the great alchemists' turning of lead into pure gold.) And we don't have to travel to some exotic wilderness to find this Fire; we find it right within our ordinary human experiences – wherever we can feel the vicissitudes of life. But best of all, thisFire does not harm us. On the contrary, it heals us. It develops in us that highly refined gold... of a character that is learning, more and more each day, how to go with the flow of the Spirit.
III
Quite often our character, our sense of who we are, is grounded in little more than a paragraph, a collection of sentences that we have rehearsed over and over, so many times that we know them all by heart. Each of us here, somewhere within each of our minds, have this sort of paragraph that tells us who we are.
It's kind of like a résume, only more complete and perhaps more honest. It's all written down there, what our name is, our favorite color, where we grew up, whether we like coffee or tea, what we see as being our strengths and our weaknesses, our dreams and our fears, our problems and our possibilities. It describes all of our memories, good and bad, and our vision of what our life is all about. But it is, in the end, just a paragraph in our minds. An importantparagraph, but a paragraph nonetheless. This is only another way of describing what we call “ego,” that collection of sentences that is all about me and my world. If we locate it inside of us and pay attention to it for a while, we notice that...very often, our sense of “who we are” comes directly from there... from that place where almost everything is already all figured out and all written down. Ask the average person who they are, and once they get over the initial shock of the question, what they will tell you probably comes from those already-written-down statements in their inner paragraph. It’s just natural. It’s how we ordinarily operate.
But what we discover through this symbol, through this encounter with God as Fire, is that no “ego” can bear the real vicissitudes of life.
A sense of self that is only based in some inner paragraph… no matter how good that paragraph is… can only take so much… before it breaks down. Now, your inner paragraph may be better than mine. It might be stronger, more durable, it might contain amazing memories, beautiful illustrations of how you climbed the Rockies, or raised a child, or wrestled with crockodiles, or some other mighty deeds that I cannot even imagine. But even if our inner paragraphs are very, very strong, their strength is still only relative. They still can only bear so much, before they break down. No inner paragraph, no “ego,” is omnipotent (although sometimes our egos think they are...).
But Spirit.... Spirit is an altogether different reality for our sense of self to be grounded in. Much more extraordinary than a collection of memorized sentences, because it is not only alive, it is divine. It is eternal.
Spirit enables us to be much, much more than we are in our ego, however strong or weak that ego may be. And this spiritual enabling, empowering us to be far more than “ego” could ever be, is what the experience of God as Fire is all about.
Let us pray:
Touch us, Holy One, with the immensity, the limitlessness, of your love for us, so that our hearts may open up, so that we can experience you in our lives as Water, washing away all that is false and harmful; and as Spirit, infusing us continuously with all that is true and beneficial; and as a blazing Fire, whose flames illuminate that shining gold, that great potential for spiritual growth, which is hidden within the difficulties that we face each day. Move within us God, as Water, and Spirit, and Fire, so that our lives may radiate that divine joy and peace and virtue, which come from knowing you, and ourselves, and one another, as we truly are.
Amen.
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