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“You are going to feel like hell if you never write the stuff that is tugging on the sleeves of your heart — your stories, visions, memories, visions and songs. Your truth, your version of things, your own voice. That is really all you have to offer us. And that’s also why you were born.”
Anne Lamott

“You are going to feel like hell if you never write the stuff that is tugging on the sleeves of your heart — your stories, visions, memories, visions and songs. Your truth, your version of things, your own voice. That is really all you have to offer us. And that’s also why you were born.”
Anne Lamott

Category: The Presence of God

The Presence of God (9) the one-storey life

George 0 Comments

“…in Him we live, move and have our being…”Acts17:28

Embracing a reality that God is present everywhere all the time — God’s presence, constant communion with Him—must define the journey. 

How to believe in a God who is “everywhere present and filling all things” is a very different way of life than to believe in a God who is “out there.”

Rejecting the reassuring lie of a two storey existence and embracing the reality of a one-story universe has profound implications. Leaving the two-story world to enter a one-story world; we move from the realm of abstraction to the realm of living.
I have not “arrived”. I am currently residing “between”— a liminal space. Mark Geil says, in this space, “…we step outside what we know and see and realize there is something else, something beautiful and mysterious.”

Liminal space is an inner state and sometimes an outer situation where we can begin to think and act in new ways. It is where we are betwixt and between, in transition, having left one room or stage of life but not yet entered the next. We usually enter liminal space when our former way of being is challenged or changed—perhaps when we lose a job or a loved one, during illness, at the birth of a child, or a major relocation. It is a graced time, but often does not feel “graced” in any way. In such space, we are not certain or in control.  

The very vulnerability and openness of liminal space allows room for something genuinely new to happen. We are empty and receptive—blank tablets waiting for new words. Liminal space is where we are most teachable, often because we are most humbled. Liminality keeps us in an ongoing state of shadowboxing instead of ego-confirmation, struggling with the hidden side of things, and calling so-called normalcy into creative question. 

It’s no surprise then that we generally avoid liminal space. Much of the work of authentic spirituality and human development is to get people into liminal space and to keep them there long enough that they can learn something essential and new.

Richard Rohr

Encountering the one-storey life has been like an Easter egg hunt— discovering and gathering. Each encounter reveals something beautiful and mysterious. It is like trying to solve a jig-saw puzzle without a picture of the completed puzzle. Unclear how the pieces fit together, I eagerly anticipate God’s presence and working in the “here and now” of the first-story will lead me in the right way.
Following are some “pieces”I am grappling with in the here and now of a one-story world .
If you are interested in delving deeper into the one-storey life, “Christianity in a One-Storey Universe” by Fr Stephen Freeman has been a helpful resource for me.

Realm of the Living – ultimate reality1 “pieces” from Christianity in a One-Storey Universe

The Christian faith is that God is with us. The christian life is lived moment by moment in union with God and in harmony with nature which God has rendered the bearer of the holy and the place of communion. 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.

  In “a one story universe the “really real” presence of God, is experienced”—”here and now”.  Living n a two-story universe God was an illusion of something real… true but unreal.. superficial and ineffectual — a mirage.

Speaking:
Speaking in a one-storey manner, words from the two-storey world are transmuted by the reality of God everywhere present.
Providence, God’s involvement with everything that is, cannot be avoided.
Incarnation
Eat, drink, abide. Words that are very here and now, though they change the nature of here and now.
Sovereignty
Trinity
Communion— Eucharist

Doing Life
As we move our Christian life Out of the realm of abstraction and into the realm of living:

  • We pray rather think about prayer.
  • We trust God rather than discussing the concept of rusting God.
  • We act on the basis of faith rather than spending time talking bout the importance of faith.
  • We make every effort to embrace God as good and at work in all things.
  • we bring our faith into this blessed first storey doing here what we were commanded to do : pray, give, forgive, love, clothe the naked, feed the hungry …
  • It is in such straightforward activities rather than in the abstract that we will find Christ, God is with us and has come to abide in us. That truly makes this storey the first.
  • Suddenly in dwelt by Someone Whom even the universe cannot contain, that reality changes us.

The more truly sacramental becomes the Christian life, the more thorough grounded It is in the God-Who-is-among-Us. Such a God is indeed. “everywhere present and filling all things.” Our options are between such a Testament, or a God who is no God at all for He is removed from us anyway.

Challenges of the one-storey world
In the one-storey life Christ reveals both hell and paradise.

One of the great difficulties of our one-storey world — It’s not that we on the first floor and that’s all there is-it’s that we live on the first floor and we don’t know the half of it. We do not realize the true nature of where are or when we are. the battlefield of our spiritual life remains within our own heart. We labor in the land where heavenly wickedness does its battle: the human heart.

The only thing first- storey Christianity can do: Keep his commandments and fall down and worship- for God is with us.

STILL ON THE JOURNEY

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    “pieces” from Christianity in a One-Storey Universe

The Presence of God (8) – Leaving aTwo Storey Life

George 0 Comments

… a “two-storey universe.” In short, this is a description of how many modern Christians see the world. There is the first floor – the natural world which operates according to naturalist, “secular” rules, and the second floor – the world of God, heaven, hell, angels, etc. The spiritual crisis of much of modern man is the inherent disconnect in these two worlds.
How to believe in a God who is “everywhere present and filling all things” is a very different way of life than to believe in a God who is “out there.”1 Fr Stephen Freemanhttps://fatherstephen.wordpress.com/2009/04/29/unbelief-and-the-two-storey-universe/

This post concludes, but does not exhaust, implications of abandoning a Two Storey life. In addition to “moving from abstraction to the realm of living“ “and “being more about knowing than believing“; today’s post focuses on Christian Atheism. at You can read the previous post HERE.

When we live our lives in the two-story world, we practice what Freeman calls “Christian atheism.” Since God is “upstairs,” God is “not here.” God isn’t close; God is elsewhere, far away and distant. And not just physically distant, mentally distant as well. God is at the back our minds, an afterthought, if we think of God at all.” 2Beck, Richard, Hunting Magic Eels (pg104)

Having confessed to mostly living in a Two Storey life; Beck’s assertion that I have been practicing Christian Atheism is a shocking declaration worthy of some serious scrutiny. What follows is a synopsis of Christian Atheism from Fr Stephen Freeman’s essay “Christianity in a Two Storey Universe”

CHRISTIAN ATHEISM

How can one be both an atheist and a Christian? 
In the history of religious thought, one of the closest versions to what I am describing as a “two-storey” world-view, is that espoused by classical Deism.
[In] an almost pure, two-storey worldview. God, “the Deity,” had created the universe in the beginning, setting it in motion. He had done so in such a way that the world could be described as directed by His Providence, but not in any sense interfered with after its creation. 
The creator had accomplished His work: it was up to us to conform ourselves to His purposes and morality – which were pretty indistinguishable from natural law. If you read the writings of the period it’s much more common to read Providence where a Christian might put God. Many modern evangelicals mistakenly read such statements as Christian.

…other than having some notion of an original Creator, Deists were practical atheists. The God Who created had completed His work. Ethics were as much a matter of scientific discovery as any other principle of physics. They believed in something they called “God” or “Providence” but only in a very divorced sense. It would be hard to distinguish their thought from that of an atheist except that they clung to an idea of God at least as the initiator of all things.
…“practical atheism,” meaning by it, that although a person may espouse a belief in God, it is quite possible for that belief to be so removed from everyday life, that God’s non-existence would make little difference.

…“practical atheists.” Though they had great, even absolutist, faith in the Holy Scriptures, they had no relationship with a God who is living and active and directly involved in their world. Had their notion of a God died, and left somebody else in charge of His heaven, it would not have made much difference so long as the rules did not change.
The more the secular world is exalted as secular, that is, having an existence somehow independent of God, the more we will live as practical atheists 
Christianity that has purged the Church of the sacraments, and of the sacramental, have only ideas which can be substituted – the result being the eradication of God from the world in all ways other than theoretical. 
…much of modern Christianity functions on this ideological level rather than the level of the God-Who-is among-us, much of Christianity functions in a mode of practical atheism. The more ideological the faith, the more likely its proponents are to expouse what amounts to a practical atheism.

The more truly sacramental becomes the Christian life, the more thoroughly grounded it is in the God-Who-is-among- us. Such a God is indeed, “everywhere present and filling all things.” Our options are between such a God – as proclaimed in the New Testament – or a God who need be no God at all for He is removed from us anyway.

There is a dialog that may take place between Christians and atheists. But there is, prior to that, an even more important dialog to be had, and that is with the practical atheism of Christians who have exiled God from the world around us. Such practical atheism is a severe distortion of the Christian faith and an extremely poor substitute for the real thing.

Richard John Neuhaus has written frequently of returning the Church to the public square. I think the problem is far deeper. In many cases we have to speak about returning God to the Church. In cases where practical atheism is the faith of a goup of “believers,” their presence in the public square makes no difference. Who cares?

God cannot be exiled from our world no matter how men try. He has come among us, and not at our invitation. “While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). He is already in the Public Square as the Crucified God who is reconciling the world to Himself, whether we like it or not. The opposite of practical atheism is to do the only thing the Christianity of the first- storey can do: keep His commandments and fall down and worship – for God is with us.

although a person may espouse a belief in God, it is quite possible for that belief to be so removed from everyday life, that God’s non-existence would make little difference.

Next: Christianity in the One Storey life

STILL ON THE JOURNEY

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    Fr Stephen Freemanhttps://fatherstephen.wordpress.com/2009/04/29/unbelief-and-the-two-storey-universe/
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    Beck, Richard, Hunting Magic Eels (pg104)

The Presence of God (7) Leaving a two-storey life

George 0 Comments

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

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    “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
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    Christianity in a One-Storey Universe pg. 9
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    ibid pg.16-17
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    https://experimentaltheology.blogspot.com/2024/04/apocalyptic-mysticism-film-with-work-of.html?m=0