In Louisville, at the corner of Fourth and Walnut, in the center of the shopping district, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all those people, that they were mine and I theirs, that we could not be alien to one another even though we were total strangers. It was like waking from a dream of separateness, of spurious self-isolation in a special world, the world of renunciation and supposed holiness…
This sense of liberation from an illusory difference was such a relief and such a joy to me that I almost laughed out loud…I have the immense joy of being man, a member of a race in which God Himself became incarnate. As if the sorrows and stupidities of the human condition could overwhelm me, now I realize what we all are. And if only everybody could realize this! But it cannot be explained. There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun.
I bring up Merton's experience, seeing people walking around shining like the sun, because I've been thinking a lot about light. Specifically, I've been reading Gregory Palamas' Triads. Palamas was a significant figure in Orthodox Byzantium. In the Triads Palamas is defending the practices and experiences of the hesychasts. Hesychasm, from the Greek word hesychia meaning "quietude," has its roots in early Egyptian monasticism. The distinctive practice of hesychasm is achieving inner stillness through repetition of the Jesus Prayer--"Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on my, a sinner."--and would became the dominant monastic expression on Mount Athos.
During their experiences of prayer and contemplation the hesychasts reported beholding God's "Uncreated Light." As 1 Timothy 6 says, God dwells in "inaccessible light." Given that inaccessible apophatic distance, some theologians raised questions about the claims of hesychasts, arguing that no human can behold God directly. It was claimed that the light the hesychasts were beholding was, rather, a created light or a symbolic light. It wasn't God's own Uncreated Light. Palamas stepped into this debate to defend the hesychasts, arguing that the light was indeed uncreated and divine.
In his defense of the hesychasts Palamas connects God's Uncreated Light to "the Light of Tabor." This was the light that shines forth from Christ during his Transfiguration:
After six days Jesus took with him Peter, James and John the brother of James, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. There he was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun, and his clothes became as white as the light.
Palamas argued the light seen by the hesychasts in prayer was this same light, the Light of Tabor. In contemplation the hesychasts were beholding God's own Uncreated Light. And more importantly, this light can be seen by every believer as they moved closer and closer to God in the union of theosis and divinization.
Now, turning toward the Bible, it is noteworthy how prominent is the theme of light. Consider 1 John 1.5:
This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light...
The message of the gospel can be expressed in three words: "God is light." God is called "the Father of Lights" (James 1.7). Christ is called "the light of the world." Children of God are also light: "now you are light in the Lord" (Eph. 5.8). Note the strength of the statement: Not "you are in the light" but "you are light." Because of this we are called "children of light."
So, I want connect the threads here. God is light. The hesychasts behold the light. All Christians should behold the light. Thomas Merton saw people shining like the sun. What I'm wondering here is if seeing the light isn't the mystical expectation of the Christian experience. Psalm 36: “In your light do we see light.” Matthew 5: "Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God." And seeing God is beholding Light, for God is Light.
Consider, as another example, the experience I share in The Shape of Joy from Francis Spufford's book Unapologetic. Spufford is describing sitting contemplatively in a quiet church, and when he grows attentive and still he sees this:
What's in front [in view of my senses] is real; what's behind is the reason for it being real, the source of its realness. Beyond, behind, beneath all solid things there seems to be a solidity...it seems to shine, this universal backing to things, with lightless light...It feels as if everything is backed with light...And that includes me.
Is this the Light of Tabor? Is this the light that flashes out at Thomas Merton? I'm inclined to say yes. Though I expect the hesychast tradition might object that this light is not so readily accessible and can only be achieved after much effort and spiritual purgation. But maybe Gerard Manley Hopkins is also correct:
The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil...
Perhaps the Uncreated Light flames out everywhere, shining like shook foil. As Marilynne Robinson has shared:
It has seemed to me sometimes as though the Lord breathes on this poor gray ember of Creation and it turns to radiance - for a moment or a year or the span of a life. And then it sinks back into itself again, and to look at it no one would know it had anything to do with fire, or light .... Wherever you turn your eyes the world can shine like transfiguration. You don't have to bring a thing to it except a little willingness to see.
The Light of Tabor shines everywhere. The Uncreated Light flames out.
