Effortlessly...

My dear Episcopalian CPE colleague, Matthew, posted this poem to facebook this evening. I'm smack in the middle of a bunch of process theology reading, and this just sidled right in. Beautiful. Forgive the masculine pronouns (especially for God), noting that Mechtild wrote them eight centuries ago.


Effortlessly,
love flows from God into man,
like a bird
who rivers the air
without moving her wings.
Thus we move in His world
one in body and soul,
though outwardly separate in form.
As the Source strikes the note,
humanity sings—
the Holy Spirit is our harpist,
and all strings
which are touched in Love
must sound.

Mechtild of Magdeburg
13th century

Boy, you're gonna carry that weight a long time.


Yesterday, in Process Theology, which I think is going to be my favorite class ever, we talked about God as relational. And also that our feelings are not just our individual feelings, but they are the feelings between us and those with whom we are in relationship. And that it is our most intimate relationships in which we are our most real selves – including our ugliest selves, and most hurt selves. Our professor talked about how process thought has space for tragedy that is not found in other Christian theologies. And that it holds loss in a way that others fundamentally cannot. This is because losses are never seen as errors God could have avoided, but rather events in the relationship between us and God that we will carry with us on our way to becoming. And just as we are becoming, God is becoming. God is none of the “omnis” of our dogma. God is in process, just as we are in process.

And I really dug that. I really held on to the part about being our ugliest selves with those with whom we are most intimate. Because there are days when I am angry and hurt and know that I am wrong. And it is in those instances where I am just terrible that I just want to sit with the person who will look at me and get that. And when everything is shit with you and I can just feel it radiating from you that you hate everything and especially me, I am the one with whom you should sit.

I cannot do or say anything that will make it better. I cannot do or say anything that will make it right. I cannot do or say anything that will alleviate this, your deepest hurt. But of all people, I am the one who knows that. And who knows that you know that.

And in that same hurt, we can sit with God and not have to throw it at God or at each other anymore. We can just carry it with us on our way.

I carry you with me on my way, you know. At the same time that you carry me with you. Isn’t it nice to admit that?