Pro-Vision

The Complex Way

Photo by Philippe Bout on Unsplash

                               Pro-Vision

So many ways have I named the One….
A child cozied by religion; in immaturity fighting wars;   
As a communal adult giving over to the sirens of faith.
Come Jesus, come Christ,  the Many Things to many people.

			              I

To Know you is to have faith.
You are known in history and in thought
To many you are the center of history
Others renounce your centrality and place.
Your words, actions, deeds are known and proclaimed
By the pious, the radical, the conservative, the liberal
All carve out a piece of your experience for themselves.
Do they “know” you? Do I “know” you?
The movement from the head to the heart
A movement that couples awareness with abandonment
In abandonment, letting go, of self into Self
To have faith is to know you.

			              II

To understand you is to perceive connectedness.
You do not stand alone in the past, present, or future
You are a contextual One in step with Time.
In the beginning you were One with God
In the context of Creation you are One with All.
God’s action with Creation is marked with tri-unity
You are One with God and the Spirit.
While on earth you were in union
Even in the Darkest Hour unity prevailed.
In the eternal cosmos, beyond sighted Creation
You are One with All – your Being pervades Everything.
Connectedness to All centers an understanding of you.

			                III

To tell your story is to affirm your life/work as one.
You were called by name - Jesus of Nazareth
The dusty roadways became eternal pathways
Known as a babe, a child, a craftor, a Rabbi/healer
Viewed as special, observed as wise,
Recognized as ordinary, seen as Teacher, felt as Healer.
To know more about those few short years on earth
We are left with linking real life to spiritual work.
Are you a classical warrior? Do you satisfy human need?
Or did you simply live and die as a moral model?
Too complex for it to be a story of the heart and ages.
Your life/work is a story to be told in unison.

				           IV

To confess you is to experience you in time and place.
The Mastery and Mystery of your story is universal.
You asked, “Who do you say that I am?”
The attempts to answer are too numerous to know
Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John and even Paul
Confessions with a spin, an endless spin.
Continents, peoples, fe/males, created and creatures
All need to experience, to know, to confess you
In their good times and in their bad times
In their situations, places, and souls.
The Mastery and Mystery must be for All.
All need to claim a time and place to confess your name.

				           V

To profess your name is to acknowledge Mystery.
To work so hard to make our claims,
Trying to be sure of something that is so elusive,
Desiring to have a final word on the Word,
Is like grasping at a moonbeam or holding sand.
For a select few these efforts have provided jobs…
Work of crafting Tradition; toil of unraveling Mystery
Paul, Augustine. Chrysostom, Aquinas, Luther, Barth
A Mystery for males!...at last Ruether, McFague and more
All desiring to test time and place with the Story
All wanting connectedness and to have a knowing faith.
Saying “yes” to the Mystery is professing your name.

                                Epi-Vision

To come fresh to you, to pack light for the journey
To say “yes” to not knowing and knowing
To be expectant and excited in the riches of the moment
Christ be in me, Christ be with me. Amen.

I wrote this in the 90s and I was believing and seeking. Rereading the piece several times, I decided to share it. 30 years out I recognize questions I was having with Christian faith. And today I am not there. I have moved on. With Julian of Norwich, I sense that: “All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.”