I recently received a letter form an old friend in which she reminisced about my parents. Reminiscences, like the sound of the word itself, ripple, and so that night as I prepared to sleep I had my own remembrances of things past.
I had never thought of my parents as conventional, although they were. I had always considered them to be exceedingly generous, and that they were, perhaps to a fault as far as the values of this world compel. Evidenced in both these habits was something more defining: they were dutiful, to family, to church, to one another. Yet, of them my most fond memories are of the times when that vesture of responsibility faded, those not frequent moments when some light within shone out, that wee flicker within which I believe is the deepest light within us each. Life flares its richest when in another we see that light and feel its warmth.
This is the radiance we delight to see in the face of the new-born, the sparkle in the eyes of the infant—all wonder and amazement, innocence and joy, that joie de vivre, as so well said in French. It is there in the fluttering bounce of legs and arms. It is there piped out in the squeals as well as the screams. It is an openness, a pure receptivity that defines us before we begin to learn duty and routine, before we begin to separate you and me, before wonder becomes a tool for practicality and joy recedes into happy. It is the misfortune of us all that we experience that triumph of practicality and happy over wonder and joy every day in religion, in preaching about god, and talking about the meaning of life.
There is something patently said, although always seemingly buried, in the writings of the great saints, philosophers, and theologians from Augustine to Aquinas, Kant to Kierkegaard. They all note we do not know god with the mind, only with the heart. Philosophy terms it: “by an act of will”, as an act of valuation. Saints mark it the act of willing called love. But every act of loving is an act of valuation which is an act of will, and on this all are agreed. The human will is creative, it makes the stuff in the mind into new stuff; it animates, vivifies the imaginative, visionary, exemplary, and causative. We cannot see God by an act of the mind; we can see God only by an act of the will. We impose upon the mystery of life at its deepest a sense of order, and we impose upon the mystery of life at its deepest a valuation, a hope, a hopefulness, and these valuations, as are all valuations, are volitions properly termed acts of love. Belief in god is not other than my will, my heart, confessing to itself that the mystery of life has value, ultimate value and order, a value and order I give to it, a mask I place over its sheer indecipherable power, a power that is at the very core of me, of everything. The difference between saying “life is meaningful, wonderful, and good” and “I believe in God” is one of vocabulary not of the reality denoted. The first is volitional, a valuation, the second is creedal, a religious coding.
Thus, the barest truth is this: God is within, not as some alien inhabitant, but as the very heart of me, ceaselessly creating me, and in and through me my world. It is the heart of me that experiences this inexpressible creativity, and as I rise up to this dignity within, this god is experienced in the world, in me, as me, through me. To them that cannot transcend the enunciations of their childhood catechisms, to them that would argue against this, note well, I stand with Christ’s saints on this issue. If you maintain God is (analogically) a person, keep in mind we “know” a person not as an object of experience, but as a valuation of some degree (positive or negative) of love, of will, and we worship (obey) by becoming, by striving to become, like unto that which we most ardently embrace. Thus, what do I make of me, of my life, my world? What power, what light do I shine forth? Whom do I touch with compassion, with joy? How do I manifest, how openly do I love, how graciously do I share that primal, that principal luminosity within?
Christmas is the festival that summons us to remember this light, this primal luminosity that shone upon our new born faces. Thus, we gather to look upon the face of a child, a bambino in the crèche, a child alight with the fulgurations of the season–all wonder and amazement, innocence and joy, and to ritualize, to realize, to celebrate that this is the heart and soul of us, each and all, as individuals, as societies. Here, in the face of a child are the deepest and most precious values: openness beyond practicalities, innocency toward self and other. This is the countenance of life’s dawn. This is the essence of humanity, and by deepest mystery, of divinity as well.
“Unto us a child is born.” There is no need to marvel that angels sing.