John 16:12-15
"Trinity" - Year C
Here we are. We have much knowledge accumulated over time. We don't yet know how to bring it to fruition.
We take a few factoids and begin to construct a leaning tower of truth that will topple if a different piece of information should land on it. Not being able to bear not having our creed, we prop-up and prop-up our tower to withstand any discordant data.
While our nature would say it has ever been thus, a nurturing spirit reminds us that this is not the end — there is more to come. We will see, like in playing with a Rubik's cube, we need to move pieces out of position in order for them to come back into position with new neighbors. Our carefully crafted tower of truth has a helpful piece or two, but it needs to be taken out of our formulation to be placed by a neighbor's helpful pieces to move us closer to what might yet be.
Build the best you can, now. At the same time, be ready to salvage only a part to carry forth into a new context. To aid us in this, rephrase: "We still have many things to learn. This is hard to bear. May a spirit of truth gently remind us of our current limits and boldly beckon us to see a larger picture — so we can have the joy of introducing past and present to one another on a blind date in our presence and present.
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2013/05/john-1612-15.html
The line about Jesus having many things to say to me, to us, but that they are unbearable for me and you, intrigues me. What might that be?
While there are many candidates for being the unbearable subject it seems to me that the leaders have to do with broken relationships. These include all the prejudices I have nurtured over time and the unresolved betrayals of self and others.
These keep me from all the truth and keep me pitting this part of truth against that part of truth. They keep my "rate of perception" (a wonderful Oliver Sacks phrase) out of sync with my intentions.
Here it is usually understood that the Spirit will reveal some external truth to us, while it is probably more truthful to indicate that we will be collaborated with, through supportive and corrective actions, to allow us to see what was before, invisible. De-claring, you see is, originally, to make clear, not, currently, to state some proposition.
A question for us as followers of Jesus and friends of the Spirit of truth, is twofold: How do we receive the More of Jesus than we have been able to up to this point and how do we assist in de-claring with others the More that they have missed up to now?
Some hints about this are available in Brueggemann's introduction to the second edition of his The Prophetic Imagination , "The subcommunity that may generate prophecy will participate in the public life of the dominant community; it does so, however, from a certain perspective and with a certain intention. Such a subcommunity is likely to be one in which
* there is a long and available memory that sinks the present generation deep into an identifiable past that is available in song and story;
* there is an available, expressed sense of pain that is owned and recited as a real social fact, that is visibly acknowledged in a public way, and that is understood as unbearable for the long term;
* there is an active practice of hope, a community that knows about promises yet to be kept, promises that stand in judgment on the present;
* there is an effective mode of discourse that is cherished across the generations, that is taken as distinctive, and that is richly coded in ways that only insiders can know.
In short, such a subcommunity is one in which the first-line, elemental realities of human, bodily, historical existence are appreciated, honored, and treasured. It is obvious that such a subcommunity knows itself to be positioned for the long-term in tension with the dominant community that responds to the subcommunity at best as an inconvenience, at worst as an unbearable interruption.
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2004/june2004.html
The unbearable word we cannot hear right now is that of unity, connection, oneness.
That which is universal, the presence of G*O*D that Jesus kept paying attention to, will continually be brought before us that we might hear it. Again and again, it will be offered to us. No matter how many times we still find it unbearable and avoid attending to it, it shall be offered.
Julian of Norwich in her Showings writes:
"Also the almighty truth of the Trinity is our Father. For he made us and keeps us in him. And the deep wisdom of the Trinity is our Mother, in whom we be all enclosed, and the high goodness of the Trinity is our Lord, and in him we are closed, and he is in us. All mighty, all wisdom and all goodness; one God, one Lord and one goodness."
Truth, Wisdom, and Goodness all point toward the unity, connection, oneness we find unbearable. When they arise we find the hole in the truth, the loophole in the wisdom and the flaw in the goodness. Without those they would be so unbearable that we would either be reborn in their image or crushed under their inevitability.
We can't bear that "all shall be well again, all manner of things shall be well." To bear that would be to boast of our sufferings, etc.
How much longer will you attempt to bear up under the unbearable?
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2004/june2004.html
This is one of my favorite passages. There is still much to learn.
Such presumption we have when we think we can quote a passage of import and universalize it to all times and places. It is appropriate humility to understand there is more to come, even better to come, than we have so far experienced. It is arrogance to claim our experience of an expansive and expanding love has run its course and we've received all we will ever have.
That which we have to learn will be grown into. A spirit guides. She doesn't dictate.
So we are again and again in the middle of things received and passed on. All the while we move closer to one another. In fact it is crucial that we honor our differences in this model, for they become one more opportunity for Spirit to teach (and learn what to teach).
Whether G*D, Christ, Jesus, Spirit (one or all or some combination) - there is a sense of universal salvation here. Needed growth will continue until maturity and there is no need to end this learning with a boundary of death. [Note: one aspect of universal salvation still needing investigation is eventual senescence, it currently implies some stasis at optimal maturity (oxymoron).]
- - -
and miles to go before we sleep
less traveled roads have been taken
and energy has grown
we grin all over ourselves
just a-think'n about what's left
on our collision course
we enter into a group hug
as differences and similarities come clear
more closely related than ever
Jesus learns more from G*D
passes it on to us
we image it back to a learning G*D
another mile onward
learning to the left
guidance to the right
into a preferred future
dance the million millions
bearing one another up forever