Abi and the Already/Not Yet Paradox

One of the things that never ceases to amaze me is the way something deep and important is revealed to me by the Spirit, but it takes another 20 years for me to "get" it.  More than just that, the process of "getting it" usually involves coming to the point where I just don't believe it anymore.  It is as if what was first revealed was a taste of the truth...but the context of my reality was such that the full flavor of the truth was blocked. It was as if that intriguing taste compelled me to slowly begin to move away from those ideas and practices of my contextual reality that were out of sync with the truth.

I love and am consistently drawn to paradox.  Perhaps that's why I enjoy space/time paradox books and movies....

I have recently finished reading Wayne Jacobsen's new book, Finding Church. It describes exactly where I find myself these days. I have gone through the deconstruction and rubble-clearing stages and have begun looking for the pattern of healthy reconstruction. So, his book is a helpful bit of confirmation of what the Spirit has been on about these past eight years.  Just as all his earlier books have been important steps along the path of my journey.  I am so grateful to God for Wayne.

I just started reading Kathy Escobar's new book, Faith Shift.  I am looking forward to finding new ways to understand what I have been experiencing, looking through her eyes and trying on her words.  Stay tuned....

I know that Wayne's book is one that I will need to give to friends and family who just don't understand my current experience outside of institutional Christianity.  I have a feeling Kathy's book may need to join it.  I am grateful to God for this brother and sister, their lives, ministry, blogs and books. I was blessed to spend time with Wayne five years ago, and I'm looking forward with hope to meeting Kathy in a couple of months.  Stay tuned for that, too....

What this added up to this morning is the realization that I have come around...again!....to the power of the simple/complex concept of covenant keeping centered in the Hebrew concept of cHesed.

I know you're surprised.  Not.

There is a Covenant Formulary that Dr. Mont Smith made in his book What the Bible Says About Covenant.  [Note:  this book is out of print, but copies can be found through various internet sources.  I have a couple dozen of them myself for use in teaching situations. Someday I hope to reformat it for digital distribution.] It is the definition of what it means to faithfully keep covenant. The formulary goes like this:  In Christ + Like Christ = With Christ.

When I first learned this over 20 years ago, it was presented as a kind of two-sides-to-a-coin thing.  The In Christ side was the faith side and the Like Christ side was the works side.  The Faith plus the Works added up to the fullness of life With Christ.  And that fit with my thinking at that time.

But that was before the deconstruction began...and as my mindset broke apart, it could no longer hold that concept. What was I going to do now? 

I had to let it go...and trust that the Spirit would return it to me when the time was right.

Apparently, that was this morning!

Because in the meantime, the Spirit was immersing me in the spoken and written words of Dr. C. Baxter Kruger...hammering out the concept of perichoresis that has been floating around in my brain for quite some time.  And while that was happening, the other shoe dropped, as it were. I found that Perichoresis remained "out there" -- just beyond reach -- until it was connected with cHesed.

So, I have been processing Perichoretic cHesed through most of 2013 and 2014. Today the old formulary was transformed so that it is real again.  It looks like this:

• Perichoresis is that wonderful dance of mutual interpenetration without loss of distinct individuality, where the Father and Son are in one another through the power of the Spirit. It is into this Great Dance that we (all of the cosmos, actually) have been drawn by the finished work of Jesus, the Father's Eternal Son. It is this reality that is represented by the component of the formulary known as "In Christ".  Everything is now In Christ, who holds all things together. This is true whether we know it or not...whether we accept it or not. It is Reality.
• cHesed is the attitudes and actions of perichoresis.  It is the very steps of the dance. We learn them by dancing with Father, Son and Spirit.  Their attitudes toward each other and us are revealed as we partner with them, as they lead us in the dance, as we relax and follow their lead. These attitudes of cHesed are gracious loving-kindness toward one another and manifest in specific actions:  deliberate affection (love that submits), unmerited favor (grace that serves), and kindness mutually owed (mercy that leads). To follow Jesus' lead and dance the steps of gracious loving-kindness with him is to be "Like Christ".
• Perichoretic cHesed is the Great Dance in its fullness...the dance of covenant keeping. It is a covenant dance where everything depends on the very nature and character of God as Father, Son and Spirit.  They dance the covenant faithfully with each other -- submitting, serving and leading according to the best interest of the Other -- and have done so for Eternity...from before Creation. And by creating the Cosmos, they widened the scope of the dance so that we may join them. This is what it means to be "With Christ" -- to know the love, grace and mercy of Father, Son and Spirit intimately and to dance the steps of submission, service and leading in step with them.  When we are "With Christ", his faithful covenant keeping becomes ours. We cannot do it on our own, we do it with him.  It's a gift we share, not a skill we hone. It is not about us...it is all about Jesus Christ and his relationship with the Father in the Spirit...and our inclusion in that relationship.

The paradox remains...we have already been included In Christ. It is not our choice or reward, but the Eternal will of God which was completed through the birth, life, ministry, death, resurrection and ascension of the Incarnate One, the Father's Eternal Son, Jesus Christ.  But we do not yet experience it fully, because we can't get our brains around what it means to live Like Christ...we have a hard time relaxing and letting him lead us in the dance.

But as we learn to accept that we are fully included -- done deal -- In Christ, and relax into the arms of Jesus and let him lead us in the Dance -- Like Christ, we will finally have peace and rest -- With Christ. 

We will be Home.

Listen to Aslan as he calls the faithful into Narnia...to come further up, come further in.  [Time to read The Last Battle again. ;^)]

My journey seems to be one of climbing a spiral staircase.  As I go further up and further in, it seems like things I've recognized in lower rungs become clearer as I climb higher.  They are not new things I am seeing, but each time I come back around, I see things with better -- renewed -- vision.  The more that I am confident of my place In Christ, the more I begin to see and perceive Like Christ, the more I am at peace With Christ.

The Already/Not Yet Paradox.  It will remain until all things are made new.  But I don't have to wait until then to dwell in the Shalom of Perichoretic cHesed and participate in the Great Dance.

I am already a New Creation In Christ...I am participating in the Dance Like Christ...but I have not yet arrived at the top of the spiral staircase that is my Journey. The Spirit, however, is continually calling me to repentance for my poor theology, renewing my mind, and cleaning the mist off my glasses, so that I see more and more clearly.

It is an awesome view...one that I want to share with those God brings across my path.  It's a process of hope and courage.  Stay tuned!

With immense gratitude as we American's approach our Thanksgiving....

Be blessed!

Abi

Abi and June's Synchroblog -- From Peggy...To Peggy

Update:  The Synchroblog Links are up and added at the end!

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This post is part of June's Synchroblog, where we were invited to travel back in time to the “You” of 10 or 20 years ago and tell yourself something you know now but wish you had known then

This is not as easy as one might think...given the Temporal Prime Directive, and all.  My post title is a reference to one of my favorite Star Trek: Voyager episodes.  The important line of advice from Captain Janeway to Harry Kim is:  "Well, if you won't take it from me, take it from you."

Temporal paradoxes are very complicated and trying to understand them will burn your brain up in a hurry...and if I was, in fact, able to go back in time and tell myself something very important...it would, undoubtedly change my timeline today.  That's the point, right?

There are so many things I have learned in the past four, er, eight years that I wish I had known 10 or 20 years ago. But calculating the when of this endeavor is of paramount importance. It can be any time after Memorial Day of 2000. So, I'm going back just over 14 years ago.

Why then?

Because if I change anything between October of 1992 and April of 2000, I risk the loss of the three most precious gifts God gave this earth through me:  my three sons.  (Cue 1960s music....)

And that is something that simply must not happen.

But there is a day that sometimes messes with me...still.  And if I could go back and change one thing that day, everything would change for me and my family...and it would perhaps mean that all traces of AbiSomeone, Virtual Abbess of the Purple Martyrdom, would disappear from the Internet.

Such are the risks one takes when playing with time.

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"Robert, could we turn right and take the scenic drive home, please? It is so beautiful with all the spring flowers blooming and the water in the creek is running so high and fast -- there is that little waterfall that should be just awesome.  Please?"

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On the 3rd of June, 2000, we were celebrating our oldest son's 5th birthday (a few weeks late) at our local Denny's. As we pulled out of the restaurant's driveway, I simply suggested that we turn right. I didn't say why. Maybe Robert didn't hear me...maybe he had other plans for the drive home...in any case, he turned left and we ended up at the front of the left turn lane, just as the light turned green.

Just then, as we accelerated, we heard the sound of a siren coming toward our intersection.  Robert stopped to ensure that the way was clear. The young man in the big pickup behind us didn't hear or see what was happening, and slammed right into us...our Mazda 929's bumper a good 8 inches lower than his steel bumper, which went straight into our trunk.

Right then all our lives changed.

My 5 year old and 17 month old sons, seemingly secure in their car seats, both suffered concussions as their heads were slammed back. Neurological damage is slow to manifest and even slower to resolve. I can't even talk about it...my heart is breaking all over again.

I knew I was pregnant -- just two weeks! Somehow I was turned toward the boys in the back seat, which is how I saw their heads bounce off the backs of their car seats. I sustained twisting injuries of my cervical spine/neck muscles and ligaments as well as of my L5/S1 vertebrae in my low back.

...and with a little over eight months more of ligament relaxing hormones pumping into my 44 year old, ever-changing, body mechanics, the prognosis for full restoration was not very hopeful.

That day my babies lost a mostly functional mommy and had to learn to make do with a very broken-down, purple one. This is not something that they have understood very well...especially the two little ones, who never really knew me "before"...but that is another story for another time, perhaps.

In particularly melancholic moments, I wonder if I would have even had the rest of my slew of injuries in the ensuing years...compounding, as it seems, from that first, catastrophic, injury.

"What if?" is a place where I have spent a lot of energy, these past 14 years.  It is not a good place to be -- because there is no time travel. And even if I had a Time Turner, I couldn't safely go back more than five hours. And the Omega 13 Device could only go back 13 seconds. Way too late for fixing....

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Nope, I can't go back. I must live fully in the present, forgiving the past as the best we knew how to do at the time. I must embrace the severe mercy of my beloved Triune God, whose merciful and loving grace faithfully works in and through all of our pain and suffering to bring into being amazing goodness that would not otherwise exist.

Suffering is part of the hard work of learning patience and compassion.  For myself...for others...for all of Creation.

Living in the past or living in the future are time wasters for me.  I need YHWH, the Present Presence, to keep me in the here and now...walking baby steps with Jesus in the midst of the darkness and nightmares.  We will get through to the light of morning.

I keep waking up every day.

We do not have the opportunity to deal with temporal paradoxes, but Perichoretic cHesed Paradoxes are all over the place for this wee, purple, forward-looking, Papa-trusting, Jesus-following, Sarayu-transformed abbess.

In due time God will restore what the locust has eaten.

But that will not be my doing -- I cannot fix any of that.  There is no magic wand...there is only embracing pain as the way of human learning.  I must walk in faith into what I am learning about who God is and who I am and what it is that I am to be doing:  receiving God's merciful loving kindness and returning it by sharing it with those God puts in my path.

...I'm happy not to lose all of my virtual fellow journey mates.... ;^)

Be blessed...and do read the rest of the bloggers, when the links are up!

Abi

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Here's the blog links!

• Justin Steckbauer – What Do You Wish You Knew 10 or 20 years ago?
• Michael Donahoe – What I Wish I had Known
• Mary – What I Wish I Would Have Known as a Newlywed
• Heather Wheat – As a Young Mother, I Wish I Had Known…
• Michelle – Ten Years of Wisdom
• Michelle – Twenty Years of Wisdom
• Wesley Rostoll – If I Could Speak to a Younger Version of Me
• Peggy – From Peggy … To Peggy
• Glenn Hager – The Reluctant Time Lord
• Carol Kuniholm – Life Lessons from Lydia
• Edwin Adrich – A Note to My Younger Self
• Paul Metler – A Note to my 20 Year Ago Self
• Liz Dyer – Dear Me
• Kathy Escobar – Never Say Never
• Jeremy Myers – A Letter to the “Me” of 15 Years Ago
• Kimberly Klein – Be Free, Be You
• Loveday Anyim – Hot Romance with the Dreams of the Sparkling Old Times
• Susan Cottrell - Be Kind To Yourself