Greater Communion

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What is the most pressing spiritual need in our world today?

The most pressing spiritual need in our world today is people who know how to regularly pay attention to the best of all things. Curbing this fundamental spiritual problem thus entails two things: (1) learning how to pay attention, and (2) connecting with / knowing about / experiencing the best of all things. In the case of the first, our society is losing the habits of mind that ensured the kind of mental staying-power needed for contemplation and prayer (e.g., memorization, meditation, lectio divina). This requires uninterrupted blocks of time in which children, teenagers, and adults stay with something. No interruption, no distraction, no diversion. The reason our education system in the United States is in such shambles right now is, in part, due to this “inattention to attention.” We break students’ attention by breaking up their days, moving swiftly from subject to subject, from teacher to teacher, one activity to another, and we certainly never force or encourage them to memorize or meditate on much of anything. How can one pay attention to anything, let alone to the best of all things, if one has not cultivated habits of mind and soul that can keep one focused on something for very long? if one’s mind is so quickly allured by noises, text messages, and emails? It should come as no surprise that distracted children grow up into adults who lack the ability to stay with anything or anyone for very long, with deleterious effects on individuals, cities, and nations.

So what about the second, attending to the best of all things? It all depends upon the range of things one believes there is to behold. If the world is merely physical, the best of all things is the best of all physical things: perhaps the male or female form? sun, moon, and stars? sub-atomic particles? or some other aspect of physical reality? But if there is more beyond the physical, and the best of all things is one of them, then one must search out invisible things in order to connect with / know about / and experience it for themselves. Without this openness and awareness to the invisible things, one cannot know oneself, let alone God.

Because we do not have people who know how to pay attention, we do not have a society of people capable of attending to the best of all things; and because people have limited their attention to the things they can—quite literally—only hold in their hands, they live like the cave-dwellers of Plato’s Republic, content to contemplate their own shadows, insensible to the light that leads to both self-awakening and the knowledge of God.

If God is a Trinity of Persons, and wants us to know this, why make it so impossible to understand?

If God is a Trinity of Persons, and wants us to know this, why make it so impossible to understand? Furthermore, if entrusting oneself to Jesus is all that’s necessary to inherit eternal life, isn’t belief in the Trinity and discussion about it a bit superfluous? Or, isn’t it sufficient to believe that God is a Trinity without having to understand it?
In some ways, this is the equivalent of saying, “If it’s important to know algebra, why does it have to be so impossible to understand? Furthermore, if entrusting oneself to Jesus is all that’s necessary to inherit eternal life, isn’t studying algebra a big waste of time? Or, isn’t it sufficient to believe that algebra is important without having to study it?” Granted, there are some things that are true of the study of mathematics that are disanalogous to the study of God; but nevertheless, the point to emphasize is that knowing God as Trinity requires work and effort. It is a crude sort of student who demands that algebra be reduced to arithmetic in order for him to understand it rather than work hard at raising his knowledge of things to comprehend algebra. The same is true for the Trinity. Just because it challenges the mind beyond its capacities doesn’t mean it cannot be understood nor that there is no benefit in the pursuit. In the truest sense, it requires devotion—devotion in study and devotion in prayer. Without an ardent zeal for a full understanding of things—”unless you seek Me with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength”—neither the pursuit of algebra nor the pursuit of God will deliver much.

If entrusting oneself to Jesus is all that’s necessary to inherit eternal life, then perhaps belief in the Trinity and discussion about it is superfluous, at least with respect to salvation. One could also point to history for examples when Trinitarian debate led to pointless philosophical speculation and even tragic death at the hands of well-intentioned theological factions. But if Divinity is a Trinity of persons, and Jesus is Divine, doesn’t this Trinitarian backdrop become relevant for understanding who Jesus is and what He is all about? The letters of John, for example, state that “God is love.” Does it make a difference whether we understand this love as Trinitarian? as a love between a Holy Father, Holy Son, and Holy Spirit? all of whom exist in a perfect, consummate oneness of life and love? a Divine love that—through Jesus—all of humanity is invited to participate in and enjoy forever and ever? beginning now? a love through which all things—in heaven and earth—will be transformed in accordance with? Contrary to the sentiment above, it is by focusing on the “communion”—the oneness of life and love—that all are invited to participate in through Jesus that the “reunion” that takes place in him discovers its full meaning and place!

It is, therefore, not superfluous to believe in the Trinity or discuss it. It is the substance of the Divine story made manifest in Jesus Christ. To ignore it or strip it away is to lose perhaps the most important context for understanding Jesus’ mission and movement in the world. He came that we might have life and have it abundantly. But that life is grounded in his life, a life which itself is grounded in a Trinity of persons. To accept Jesus’ invitation is, therefore, to participate in his life—a Trinitarian life—filled with an abundance that salvages the broken heart of humanity and mends it with its own, life-giving pulse; a pulse centered in a single heart shared by Father, Son, and Spirit. If there is any superfluity here—to play with the Latin etymology for ‘superfluous’ (i.e., “running over”)—it is the Divine superfluity that is so full of loving-kindness it fills up the devoted soul and makes its cup “overflow.”