Embracing a reality that God is present everywhere all the time — God’s presence, constant communion with Him—must define the journey.
Embracing the reality that God is present everywhere all the time has been like “hitting the tar baby”.
Coming to grips with the truth that my life has mostly been and continues to be lived in a two storey universe1“We live here on earth, the first floor, where things are simply things and everything operates according to normal, natural laws, while God lives in heaven, upstairs, and is largely removed from the story in which we live. To effect anything here, God must interrupt the laws of nature and perform a miracle.” For us to see or hear from God, God has to come downstairs to visit us. But most of the time, it’s just us alone on the first floor. God is absent, upstairs and minding his own business.
FR Stephen Freeman is disconcerting to say the least. Rohr captures the essence of my emotional and spiritual angst:
When we touch our deepest image of self, a deeper image of reality, or a new truth about God, we’re touching something that opens us to the sacred. We’ll want to weep or to be silent, or to run away from it and change the subject because it’s too deep, it’s too heavy. As T. S. Eliot wrote, “human kind cannot bear very much reality.”
Richard Rohr – https://cac.org/daily-meditations/our-limited-perspectives/
The weight of that revelation cannot be ignored. Rejecting the reassuring lie of a two storey existence and embracing the reality of a one story universe has profound implications. This post and the next address abandonment of the two-story life. Succeeding posts will speak to the practical implications of life in a one-story universe.
“Christianity in a One-Storey Universe” by Fr Stephen Freeman is an in-depth article which has been helpful and challenging. Blog posts by Richard Beck have contributed significantly.
Abandonment of a Two-story Universe –
from abstraction to the realm of living
[In abandoning a two storey universe] we begin to move our Christian life out of the realm of abstraction and into the realm of living. We pray rather than think about prayer. We trust God rather than discussing the concept of trusting God. We act on the basis of faith rather than spending time talking about the importance of faith. We make every effort to embrace God as good and at work in all things. 2Christianity in a One-Storey Universe pg. 9
Living a one storey life can be described as simply living here and now. It is being present to God Who is present to us. It is recognizing the true nature of the created world as the arena of both our struggle and our serenity. Our argument with those who do not believe should not be about whether or not their is a second storey to our universe, but about the true nature of the universe in which we live. Whenever Christians allow the gospel to be shoved upstairs, we have allowed ourselves to be disregarded and the gospel to be marginalized. God did not become flesh and dwell among us in order to establish the truth of a second storey universe: he came to redeem the one we live in. Those who cannot recognize hell among us will also be blind to paradise as well. Christ reveals both. Our daily struggle is to live in the latter and to proclaim the gospel to those who live in the former, trampling down death by death, and upon those in the tombs bestowing life. 3ibid pg.16-17
Abandonment of a Two-story Universe –
more about knowing than believing
..by mysticism I mean an experiential encounter with God, “bumping into God” …Here’s how I make the contrast between belief and experience in the Introduction to Hunting Magic Eels:
The issue is the difference between belief and experience. Belief is intellectual assent and agreement with the doctrinal propositions of faith. Experience exists prior to and drives belief. Experience gives birth to belief. It’s hard to “believe” in God if belief isn’t naming something in our lives, something we’ve felt, sensed, seen, or intuited. As the Christian mystical tradition teaches us, life with God is more about knowing than believing. The mystics didn’t believe in God; they encountered God.
Without an experience of God, belief has no content, no reference, no object. No way to get to “Yes!” 4https://experimentaltheology.blogspot.com/2024/04/apocalyptic-mysticism-film-with-work-of.html?m=0
NEXT:
Abandonment of a Two-Storey Universe
leaving practical atheism
STILL ON THE JOURNEY
- 1“We live here on earth, the first floor, where things are simply things and everything operates according to normal, natural laws, while God lives in heaven, upstairs, and is largely removed from the story in which we live. To effect anything here, God must interrupt the laws of nature and perform a miracle.” For us to see or hear from God, God has to come downstairs to visit us. But most of the time, it’s just us alone on the first floor. God is absent, upstairs and minding his own business.
FR Stephen Freeman - 2Christianity in a One-Storey Universe pg. 9
- 3ibid pg.16-17
- 4https://experimentaltheology.blogspot.com/2024/04/apocalyptic-mysticism-film-with-work-of.html?m=0