I know several people who love Christmas and all the carols of the season. They are, however, continuously censoring themselves whenever its music fills their hearts. They feel hypocritical chanting away about virgins giving birth, the Font of All Being becoming a child, angels rousing shepherds, wise men traipsing the desert after a star, etc.
Were it any other body of song, would such scruples of literalism arise? Are these would-be Christmas choristers taken aback by contemporary secular songs? Do they question if anyone ever literally removed his heart and left it behind in San Francisco? Do they feel certain someone measured love to ascertain that it is in fact deeper than the ocean? Are they befuddled by having not been told which part of which ocean is being used as the standard? Could one really dance all night? Are they flummoxed about the type of dance that might be involved in this marathon?
Why do we think the words of hymns and prayers are to be taken literally? Who defines God? Who has the formula for the ground of being? Who knows the contours and content of eternity? If our words are images for things that can have no image–for ideas, ideals, non-material realities–why do we become so obsessed about taking them literally? There is a goodly foundation in the scriptural injunction against making any image of the divine, for we have a tendency to forget image is the product of the imagination, not the reality we try to picture, be that in a word, stone, paint, or even our humble thoughts.
That which causes all that is to be may be called by us “God” or “He”, but how piteously little is that “He” before the immensity of power that causes every “he”, “she”, “it” that is. The designation is an image, a reverent icon, devised as a short-hand for us and by us. Such also are a gentle kiss upon a forehead, a firm handshake, a hand held over the heart, a wink of the eye, a wave of the hand, a billet-doux, a box of chocolates, a bouquet of flowers, indeed, every sign and symbol for love, hope, and promise. Our words, acts, images are codes we make-up and use to guide ourselves to the understanding of life, self and one another, to express our valuation of life, self and one another.
The image of being a child of God denotes an intimate bond exists with the very font of Being, virgin birth is code for a life that is valued as something more than human effort or design can provide, angels are literally “messengers”, messages, signs that break upon us “out of the blue”, etc. I need not create a lexicon for the poetry of the soul. The soul, freed of the fear, can decipher these things for itself. “Fear Not!” That is the glad tiding; do not be afraid of the inexplicable. “Behold!”—hold on to this with your every experiential capacity and allow it to define you, allow yourself to discover yourself in this, let your very being be to hold onto this!
To sing about Jesus (Christian code for how we ought value self), to pray to God (religious code for the font of all that is) is, in essence, to make a statement about my vocation, my call, my duty, my honour to be to my world, a presence–understanding, caring and compassionate, healing, gracious and graceful. The sorrows, the glories, the highs and lows of Christ’s life, the power, the love, the goodness of God coded in song and in prayer are there as projections of who I am called to be, what I am called to do, how I am called to live. God needs not my praise or prayers, but “God stands there for me” (and I intend the full panoply of meaning derivable from that equivoque) that I may in this light have light to see my way, that I may in this eternal presence have a place to chart my present, that I may in this gracious life find my élan for living. Thus, whether I sing Silent Night, Christ is Risen, or Holy Spirit, Come, whether I pray the confession from Morning Prayer or the psalms, they all are the songs of a soul looking upon its ultimate form, searching out its destiny, examining its call.
This is the place we tune out the everyday and gaze upon a deeper surface to glimpse the dynamics upon which we stand, to be inspired by vistas we can rise up to, to celebrate the wonder-ful-ness of being an entity capable of hope and love. How here does one not sing, not pray, when the every song, the every prayer is humbly and joyfully not other than the self, confronting, celebrating the meaning, the meaningfulness of its past, its present or its yet to be all against the backdrop of timeless eternity? Every contemplation of god, every celebration of god, is a contemplation of self, a celebration of self, of soul, of spirit; and the self needs be contemplated and celebrated—focused and valued—in most rich, most reverent tones.