I recently read in my New York Times news feed that we're drowning in the imperative to be "intentional." Being intentional, it seems, is the cure for everything that is ailing us. Being more intentional with our work, with our relationships, with our health, with our self-care, with our relationship with God.

I've contributed my fair share to this discourse. Intentionality sits behind many of the recommendations and practices I describe in my books. 

For example, in Stranger God I describe Thérèse of Lisieux's Little Way as an intentional practice of hospitality. In Stranger God I devote chapters to intentional practices I call "seeing," "stopping," and "approaching." The point I make in the book is that if we're not being intentional as we move through the day we operate on what I call "social autopilot." This relational autopilot tends to get captured by social psychological dynamics. One of these dynamics is what David Leong has called "the social logic of homogeneity," how like is attracted to like, along with our natural wariness toward difference. As I describe in Stranger God, without intentionally disengaging my social autopilot my relationships unconsciously and naturally drift toward affinity groups. I associate with and befriend people who look like me, exist in the same socio-economic bracket, have the same educational status, vote like me, think like me, and share the same hobbies and interests. The social autopilot draws me into an "echo chamber" of sameness. None of this is willfully malevolent, but it creates the social and relational sorting that makes our relational groups very homogeneous. Given this tendency, the only way to diversify our relationships is to adopt intentional practices of navigating our social world that create opportunities to encounter and develop friendships with people very unlike ourselves. 

In Hunting Magic Eels I describe how recovering enchantment--God being present and filling all things--involves intentional practices of attention. Many modern Christians, for example, default to the metaphysics of scientism. The world is full of inert objects governed by the laws of physics. We've lost what theologians call a "sacramental ontology" where, as Gerard Manley Hopkins put it, the world is charged with the grandeur of God. In the words of Martin Buber, we default to experiencing the world through an I-It relation. The world around me is an It, a dead object devoid of mind and spiritual resonance. Given this attentional default, we need to become more intentional in how we direct and invest our attention. I describe many such practices in Hunting Magic Eels, from liturgy to prayer to nature to poetry to testimony to sacramentals. These practices foster an I-Thou relationship with the world. Through intentional practices of attention a capacity for sacred encounter is cultivated. 

As a last example, The Shape of Joy encourages readers to make an "outward turn" toward transcendence. As I describe in the book, the modern self is self-referential and ruminative. This morbid introversion, being curved inward upon yourself, has destabilized our mental health. When left alone this inward focus is our attentional default. Worse, it's a therapeutic recommendation. We're told to "find our true self." To discover "our truth." Consequently, if we want to reverse the curvature of the self, to flip the ego inside out, we have to become intentional in directing our gaze outward, toward a sacred, cosmic, existential, and transcendent ground of purpose, mattering, and worth. 

Stepping back, as we can see, I've made many calls for becoming more intentional. From the Little Way, to re-enchantment, toward stabilizing our mental health, we need to become more aware of a default state of mind and relating to the world, relationally, spiritually, and psychologically. Otherwise, we move through the world on autopilot. And disengaging this autopilot requires intentionality. 

So, I think intentionality is a good thing. But might there be some problems here as well? 

After Palamas’ defense of the hesychasts in The Triads, his dispute with Barlaam of Calabria soon spread throughout the wider church. A series of councils held in Constantinople between 1341 and 1368 ultimately took up the matter. These councils affirmed Palamas’ teaching, establishing the distinction between essence and energies as central to Orthodox theology, liturgy, and spirituality.

As summarized by Kallistos Ware, the 1351 council was the most important, summarizing the doctrine of divine energies in eight main points: 

1. There is in God a distinction between the essence and the energies or energy. (It is equally legitimate to refer to the latter either in the singular or in the plural).
2. The energy of God is not created but uncreated.
3. This distinction between the uncreated essence and the uncreated energies does not in any way impair the divine simplicity; there is no 'compositeness' in God.
4. The term "deity" may be applied not only to the essence of God but to the energies.
5. The essence enjoys a certain priority or superiority in relation to the energies, in the sense that the energies proceed from the essence.
6. Man can participate in God's energies but not in his essence.
7. The divine energies may be experienced by men in the form of light -- a light which, though beheld through men's bodily eyes, is in itself non-material, 'intelligible' and uncreated. This is the uncreated light that was manifested to the apostles at the Transfiguration on Mount Tabor, that is seen during prayer by the saints in our own time, and that will shine upon and from the righteous at their resurrection on the Last Day. It thus possesses an eschatological character: it is "the light of the Age to Come."
8. No energy is to be associated with one divine person to the exclusion of the other two, but the energies are shared in common by all three persons of the Trinity.

As elaborated in Orthodox theology, Palamas' teaching sets forth an ousia/energeia distinction. This distinction also marks the contrast between the apophatic and cataphatic theological traditions. As Kallistos Ware describes:

Apophaticism, then, has both a negative and an affirmative aspect. It underlines, on the one hand, the transcendence and incomprehensibility of God, 'whom no man has seen or can see'; it proclaims, on the other hand, the possibility of an encounter face to face with this unknowable God, of an unmediated union with the Inaccessible. To express this double truth that God is both hidden and revealed, both transcendent and immanent, Orthodox theology makes a distinction between the divine essence (ousia) and the divine energies or operations (energeiai). This latter term, while possessing a philosophical flavour, is in fact also scriptural. Whereas 'the term ousia is used in only one passage of the New Testament (Lk 15: 12--13)- and here it does not refer to God, but means 'property' or 'wealth' - the term energeia, applied to God, is found several times in the Epistles (Ep I: 19, 3: 7; Ph 3: 21; Co 1: 29, 2: 12). 

Ousia or essence means God as he is in himself, the energeiai or energies signify God in action and self-revelation. According to the Orthodox apophatic tradition, the divine essence remains for ever above and beyond all participation and all knowledge on the part of any creature, both in this age and in the Age to Come; the essence of God can be apprehended neither by men nor by angels, but only by the three divine persons themselves. But God's energies, which are God himself, fill the whole world, and by grace all may come to participate in them. The God who is 'essentially' unknowable is thus 'existentially' or 'energetically' revealed.

As described in the last post, since the cosmos is upheld by the energy and action of God the entirety of existence is irradiated by God's sustaining presence. Ware describing this:

This doctrine of the immanent energies implies an intensely dynamic vision of the relationship between God and the world. The whole cosmos is a vast burning bush, permeated but not consumed by the uncreated fire of the divine energies. These energies are 'God with us'. They are the power of God at work within man, the life of God in which he shares. Because of the omnipresence of the divine energies, each of us can know himself as made in the image of God. Through the divine energies, Jesus Christ ceases to be for us an historical figure from the distant past, with whose story we are familiar from books, and he becomes an immediate presence, our personal Saviour. Through the divine energies we know him not merely as a human teacher but as the pre-eternal Logos.

As I mentioned in the first post, Palamas' essence versus energies distinction, the ousia/energeia contrast, is a helpful way of thinking about God's transcendence versus God's immanence. Specifically, God's essence/ousia speaks to the absolute ontological contrast between God and creation. God is transcendent. This boundary is patrolled by apophaticism, the Via Negativa. However, at the same time God is immanently present to us via His energies. God is intimate and close. As Ware describes:

In His essence, God is infinitely transcendent, radically unknowable, utterly beyond all created being, beyond all understanding and all participation from the human side. But, in His energies, God is inexhaustibly immanent, the core of everything, the heart of its heart, closer to the heart of each thing than is that thing’s very own heart. These divine energies, according to the Palamite teaching, are not an intermediary between God and the world, not a created gift that He bestows upon us, but they are God Himself in action; and each uncreated energy is God in His indivisible totality, not a part of Him but the whole.

The cosmos burns but is not consumed, aflame with the Uncreated Fire.

“He sent signs and wonders against you, Egypt”

Psalm 135 is a doxological recapitulation of Israel’s story and the Lord’s mighty acts of deliverance. Scholars view Psalm 135 as highly intertextual, as it densely quotes or echoes many other Scriptures. There are parallels with Psalm 115 in its idol critique, Deuteronomy 32 in its emphasis on God’s vindication, and the Exodus deliverance from Egypt. Some scholars argue that almost every verse of Psalm 135 either alludes to or incorporates other biblical texts, suggesting that the psalm functions as a theological summary of Israel’s identity and history.

For this reflection, I want to focus on Israel’s experience of the Exodus. The paradigmatic experience of salvation in the Old Testament was liberation and emancipation. All Christus Victor images of atonement in the New Testament echo the Exodus. What is important to note about the Exodus is that it did not concern or involve Israel’s guilt. Israel was not sent to Egypt as a punishment. Nor were the oppressions of the Egyptians sent by God. Consider Exodus 6:5–6, with the Lord speaking to Moses:

I have heard the groaning of the Israelites, whom the Egyptians are forcing to work as slaves, and I have remembered my covenant.

Therefore tell the Israelites: I am the Lord, and I will bring you out from the forced labor of the Egyptians and rescue you from slavery to them. I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and great acts of judgment.

Notice how “redemption” here is free of any forensic or penal aspects related to sin and guilt. Redemption simply concerns restoring the enslaved to their original state of freedom and liberty.

To be sure, by the time the New Testament opens, redemption has taken on penal and forensic dimensions. Israel was experiencing a new captivity in exile, and this oppression was understood as the result of covenantal infidelity. Thus, a “second Exodus” would have to deal with guilt. Passover, redemption from slavery, becomes conflated with the Day of Atonement, the expiation of guilt. We see this conflation in John the Baptist’s description of Jesus: “Behold the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.” The reference to the lamb is a Passover image, while the removal of sin draws from the Day of Atonement. It is Israel’s exile that brings these together: an enslavement requiring Passover that is caused by unfaithfulness requiring atonement.

Here is the point I want to make. Atonement is not the end but the means. From the very beginning, salvation was emancipatory. The goal was freedom and liberation, being set free from oppressive and enslaving powers. True, a deserved guilt stood in the way, and that guilt had to be dealt with. But forgiveness was not the goal. It was the means. This is a point often forgotten in evangelical spaces where penal substitutionary atonement functions as the dominant soteriological paradigm. Guilt is only one piece of the whole, and not the most important piece.

Atonement is necessary, but what we ultimately desire and need is Exodus. To make the point plain, even if you are declared innocent from a penal and forensic perspective, you are still going to die. Innocent people still die. Innocent people are still captive to death. Being “forgiven” does you no good if you remain in captivity.

What we most desire is light and life. Salvation is God redeeming us from captivity to darkness and death. Atonement for sin is one part of that work, a means toward that end. Forgiveness is necessary for salvation, but not sufficient. Exodus is greater than atonement. Salvation is greater than forgiveness.

In the last post we described Barlaam of Calabria's criticism of hesychasts' claims of beholding the Uncreated Light of God. Citing Biblical texts, Barlaam argued that no one could see God. Consequently, the light the hesychasts were beholding had to be an imagined, created light. 

The monk, archbishop, and theologian Gregory Palamas (1296–1359) stood up to defend the authenticity of the hesychasts' claims against Barlaam's attacks. Between 1338 and 1341, Palamas wrote For the Defense of Those Who Practice Sacred Quietude defending the legitimacy of the hesychast experience. Given that this defense was shared across three books with three treatises in each, the work came to be known as The Triads. And it's in The Triads where Palamas shares his famous distinction between God's essence and God's energies.  

Palamas centers his defense on the experience of Peter, James, and John on Mount Tabor when they beheld Jesus' transfiguration. On the mountian the apostles behold, directly, the glory of God. This glory, Palamas continues, is the same light the hesychasts were experiencing. "Do you not see," Palamas writes, "how this light shines even now in the hearts of the faithful and perfect?"

Against this view, critics like Barlaam were setting themselves up as "enemies of such an illumination" by arguing that "all the lights which God has manifested to the saints are only symbolic apparitions, allusions to immaterial and intelligible realities."

Again, Barlaam had some Biblical support for his contentions. There was also the strong witness of the apophatic tradition and its influence upon scholastic theology. As a scholastic theologian, and like Thomas Aquinas, Barlaam argued that God's essence was unknowable. Consequently, it was impossible for the hesychasts to gaze directly upon God's essence.

Palamas was quick to agree with Barlaam on this point. No one can see or behold God's essence. In good apophatic fashion, Palamas agrees that God's essence "transcends all affirmation and negation." God does not "allow Himself to be seen in His superessential essence." 

But if that's true, what were the hesychasts seeing?

Palamas argues that what the hesychasts beheld, the same light seen by the apostles on Mount Tabor, was not God’s essence but God’s uncreated energy. By “energy” Palamas means God’s direct and uncreated activities, His operations by which He is present and active in the world. The names of these energies are various: virtue, goodness, power, grace, wisdom, illumination, providence, deification. Even existence itself. Palamas uses the metaphor of the sun to explain the contrast. There is a difference between what the sun is in itself (its essence) and the light/energy it radiates which we can enjoy and share. 

Critical to this distinction is that God's essence exceeds all His created effects and activities in the world. God cannot be reduced to this energies. As Palamas says, "Thus, neither the uncreated goodness, nor the eternal glory, nor the divine life nor things akin to these are simply the superessential essence of God, for God transcends them all as Cause." And yet, in an equally crucial move, Palamas argues that God is truly present to us in these operations and activities:  "But since God is entirely present in each of the divine energies, we name Him from each of them, although it is clear that He transcends all of them." Thus, "Essence and energy are thus not totally identical in God, even though He is entirely present in every energy." 

That is the argument in a nutshell. Essence and energy are not identical in God. But God entirely present in every energy. 

Returning, then, to the apophatic tradition, Palamas concludes by saying that the words we use to describe God name God's energies. In contrast, we cannot speak to or describe God's unknowable essence:

Moreover, the Holy Fathers affirm unanimously that it is impossible to find a name to manifest the nature of the uncreated Trinity, but the names belong to the energies...He Who is beyond every name is not identical with what He is named; for the essence and energy of God are not identical.

Concerning divine participation, then, theosis and deification come through God's divine energy. As the soul draws closer to God it experiences an increasing share in God's "deifying energy," what Palamas also calls the "theurgic grace of the Spirit." The energy of God pours into the person bringing about an ontological transformation. And as this transformation happens, the glory of God becomes visible to the spiritual sight of the purified soul. We come to see, says Palamas, "that uncreated light which is the glory of God." 

This deifying light, continues Palamas, exist everywhere. God fills all things. Existing in God, everything is irradiated with God's energy. Since "God is everywhere," Palmas says, "Deification is likewise everywhere, ineffably present." He continues:

But just as one cannot see fire, if there is no matter to receive it, nor any sense organ capable of perceiving its luminous energy, in the same way one cannot contemplate deification if there is no matter to receive the divine manifestation. But if with every veil removed it lays hold of appropriate matter, that is of any purified rational nature, freed from the veil of manifold evil, then it becomes itself visible as a spiritual light. "The prize of virtue," it is said, "is to become God, to be illumined by the purest of lights, by becoming a son of that day which no darkness can dim. For it is another Sun which produces this day, a Sun which shines forth the true light. And once it has illumined us, it no longer hides in the West, but envelops all things with its powerful light. It grants an eternal and endless light to those worthy, and transforms those who participate in this light into other suns."

This is what the hesychasts beheld, the Light of Tabor. Through their ascetical practices, the deifying work of God, that luminous energy everywhere present and latent in the world, was flashing forth. The theurgic grace of the Spirit was doing its divinizing work. Just like Christ before his apostles, transfiguration was being made visible. The Uncreated Light was shining out.

In this series I want to introduce the work of Gregory Palamas (1296–1359) to share perspectives about how to think about divine transcendence versus divine immanence. I think Palamas’ work, while not wholly uncontested within the Christian tradition, provides a helpful lens for reflecting on how God is both transcendent and immanent.

To start, I want to share a bit of the history behind Palamas' writing of The Triads, focusing on the controversy that prompted him to articulate his famous contrast between God's essence versus God's energies.

The controversy started in the 1330s when Barlaam of Calabria, a monk and scholastic theologian, visited Mount Athos. There, Barlaam encountered the hesychasts. Inspired by the desert fathers, the hesychasts were monks devoted to stillness and continual prayer. The name hesychast comes from the Greek hesychia, meaning “quiet.” By the 14th century, the hesychasts had brought their ascetic practices to Mount Athos.

The hesychasts shared with Barlaam mystical experiences in which they beheld the "Uncreated Light" emanating from God's very Being. This was the "Light of Tabor" that flashed out during Christ's transfiguration.

These claims startled Barlaam. Barlaam felt that no human could gaze upon God directly. The Bible seems clear on this point: as God said to Moses, "For no one may see me and live" (Exodus 33:20). 1 Timothy 6:16 and John 1:18 also clearly state that no one has ever seen God. Consequently, whatever the hesychasts were seeing, it couldn't be God. Barlaam contended that the light the hesychasts were reporting was a created light, something generated by their own imaginations, perhaps symbolic of the Uncreated Light, but not the actual Uncreated Light. In claiming to see God directly, the hesychasts were skirting blasphemy.

In response to Barlaam’s criticism of the hesychasts, Palamas set out to defend their mystical experiences. In his For the Defense of Those Who Practice Sacred Quietude, Palamas argued that the hesychasts were having a real and direct experience of God. The light they beheld wasn't imagined or symbolic but was, rather, a genuine encounter with divine reality.

At the heart of Palamas' defense was a distinction he made between God's essence versus God's energies.

The controversy between Barlaam and Palamas eventually made its way into the broader church, culminating in the series of councils held in Constantinople between 1341 and 1368. These councils officially affirmed Palamas' teaching and formally recognized the experiences of the hesychasts as authentic. As a result, Palamas' defense of hesychasm, with its contrast between essence and energies, became a cornerstone of Eastern Orthodox theology, spirituality, and liturgical practice. Hesychasm continued to thrive on Mount Athos, shaping Orthodox spirituality to this very day.

With this history now in front of us, in the next post we'll turn to Palamas' The Triads and his essence versus energies distinction.

"The Road to Damascus"

Tracing the fissures,
fingering the shards
of a fractured life.
And you,
the thrown stone.
The cause of my cracking.
It was not a gradual waking,
dully, from sleep.
Our meeting, rather,
sharp and irreversable.
Beholding what I took to be myself
rendered beyond mending.

Last summer, visiting the chapel in the castle at the top of St. Michael's Mount in Cornwall, I was interrupted by a statue of St. Michael created by Lyn Constable Maxwell, commissioned in 1989.

The Mount was named after the archangel due to its history of apparitions. St. Michael would appear to Cornish fishermen during storms to save them from being dashed on the shoals.

In the iconography of St. Michael, most of the imagery is martial and is pulled from Revelation 12:

Then war broke out in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought back. But he was not strong enough, and they lost their place in heaven. The great dragon was hurled down—that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him.

In light of this text, Michael is often depicted with a foot on Lucifer's neck and thrusting a sword or spear at him. Some examples:

Basically, you expect to see violent imagery, the archangel as the Spear of God, associated with St. Michael. This is why Lyn Constable Maxwell's sculpture interrupted me. Here's a picture I took:

Notice two things. First, Michael isn't stabbing down with the sword. Instead the sword is held upside down to create a cross. The sword is inverted to become a sign of grace, mercy, pardon, and forgiveness. Second, Michael's hand is held out and is upturned. Michael is extending an invitation. Of help? Of grace? Of return? It was that open hand which interrupted me.

Grace for the devil. Now that is a provocative idea! In all the debates about hopeful eschatological visions this is an issue that rumbles in the background. The arguments are pretty exclusively focused upon if all of humanity will be saved. The eschatological focus is anthropocentric. Rarely do these discussions tackle the issue of angelic redemption or to ask the verboten question, "Is mercy extended, even to Lucifer?"

And yet, this question about an illicit grace is asked by a statue at the top of St. Michael's Mount.

"Now bless the Lord"

Psalm 134 brings a conclusion to the Psalms of Ascent. Recall, these were the suite of songs that pilgrims sang as they journeyed to Jerusalem and the temple. Psalm 134 is very short, and scholars believe it functions as a concluding doxology and benediction. There also seems to be a call-and-response structure. Verses 1–2 appear to be imperatives directed to the priests and Levites tending the temple during the night watch:

Now bless the Lord,
all you servants of the Lord
who stand in the Lord’s house at night!
Lift up your hands in the holy place
and bless the Lord!

In response, the priests and Levites offer back a blessing upon the people:

May the Lord,
Maker of heaven and earth,
bless you from Zion.

Back in September, I joined Chris Green on his Speakeasy Theology podcast, where I used the phrase “the difference is doxological.” In that conversation, I was describing how God has gifted the world an intrinsic logic and rationality and has made that logic transparent, to a certain degree, to the human mind. The logos of the human mind can attune itself to the Logos upholding and sustaining the cosmos. The rationalities, human and divine, can synchronize. And this is grace, a grace available to every human person.

In my conversation with Chris, the point I was making concerned behavioral and psychopharmacological technologies related to our mental health. Such technologies can appear to be “secular,” “medical,” and “scientific.” But that is wrong. These technologies are spiritual and supernatural grace. The only difference between the “sacred” and the “secular,” when it comes to the technologies of human flourishing, is doxological. There are those who recognize these technologies as gifts and give praise, and those who do not.

I bring up my conversation with Chris to connect back to Psalm 134 and the doxological coda of the Psalms of Ascent to make this point. In so much of life, the difference is doxological. Growing up, I had a very narrow definition of “worship.” Worship was singing on Sunday morning. Everything else in life was “not worship.” Today, by contrast, this has completely flipped. I now see that everything is doxological.

Spiritual practice is being alert to grace, an alertness that flows over into gratitude, thankfulness, and praise. If all is grace, then doxology is everything.

And that makes all the difference.

"Nativity" (revisited and revised, from 2023)

A baby, yes.
Unto us, a child given.
But more.

Behold the Implication.

Intimate detonation
in swaddling clothes.
The vast,
the particular,
the cosmic and mundane.
All interrupted.
Each thing atilt,
unmade, askew.

Hush now,
and listen.
Infinity echoes
in this infant's cry.

In my daily reading of the Psalms I was interrupted by this passage from Psalm 19:12 (NRSV):

But who can detect one’s own errors?
Clear me from hidden faults.

The CSB renders it this way:

Who perceives his unintentional sins?
Cleanse me from my hidden faults.

In the background of this passage is the Levitical concern about "unintentional sins" described in Leviticus 4 and 5. There are ways in which we go against God's will without even knowing it. 

What interrupted me about these concerns over "unintentional sins" and "hidden faults" was the question of my own self-assessment. Just how blind am I to my sins and faults? And what is the source of that blindness?

While I can be critical of Sigmund Freud, one of this great contributions, in my estimation, was his description of how we are masters at self-deception. We hide from ourselves. Much of this is due to defense mechanisms, ways we obscure or twist the truth to avoid a clear confrontation with ourselves. 

And if this is true, just how large is that blind spot of mine? And how to bring more of it into view?

To be sure, this sort of soul work isn't what everyone needs at a given moment. People struggling with depression shouldn't be seeking out self-criticism. But moral hygiene requires some effort in taking honest reckonings of oneself. This brings to mind an image from Amos 7, a vision of a moral plumb line:

He showed me this: The Lord was standing there by a vertical wall with a plumb line in his hand. The Lord asked me, “What do you see, Amos?”

I replied, “A plumb line.”

Then the Lord said, “I am setting a plumb line among my people Israel..."

A plumb line, as I expect you know, is a weight attached to a line. You drop a plumb line from the top of or alongside a wall to see how far the wall is from vertical. Amos uses the image of a plumb line to describe the Lord's moral assessment of Israel. The plumb line is dropped among the people to reveal how "off" Israel is from vertical alignment. 

In a similar way, if we want to bring our hidden faults into view, we can drop a plumb line in our lives. We can engage with the Ignatian practice called the examen of conscience. We can seek the input of those closest to us, opening ourselves to their feedback. We can embrace confessional and humble postures and practices. 

Still, things will be missed. We'll never be wholly transparent to ourselves. As Psalm 19 says, "Who can detect one's own errors?" And so we continuously pray: "Lord, cleanse me of my hidden faults."

At the start of Hunting Magic Eels I share Thomas Merton's famous 4th and Walnut experience. It was a pivotal moment in Merton's life, one that participated in his "outward turn" toward the world. As he recounts:

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. 

I expect you might have come across, or read, some of the appreciative commentary about the portrayal of Christianity in Rian Johnson's most recent installment in the Knives Out whodunit movies, Wake Up Dead Man, now streaming on Netflix. If you haven't seen the movie, no spoilers will follow.

There are, in fact, two portrayals of Christianity on display in Wake Up Dead Man, one ugly and the other beautiful. Amazingly, the beautiful portrayal of faith is the faith of the movie's protagonist, the young Catholic priest, Jud Duplenticy. The faith of Father Jud shines through the film, start to finish.

As for the ugly portrayal of faith, that of Msgr. Wicks, this is the dark Christianity we've seen weaponized in the culture wars. In an interview with the magazine America, Johnson described the Christianity of Wicks as "all about 'us against them' and speaks in the language of war and talks about being persecuted and building the walls of the fortress in spiritual warfare."

In short, Wake Up Dead Man presents two visions of Christianity. One vision is ugly and false. The other is beautiful and true.

And the contrast is so, so startling. A light shines out in the darkness. This is such a rare choice in Hollywood, to paint Christianity as beautiful. Typical portrayals of Christianity are cynical, deconstructive, and ethically murky. Wake Up Dead Man paints only with the ugly and the beautiful. And when you behold the beautiful, your heart surges and soars. Johnson even lets the beauty existentially interrupt the skepticism and unbelief of Benoit Blanc, the purported hero of these stories. In fact, you can make a good argument that the "dead man" of the title is Blanc. The dead man could also be the American church.

Here's my comment.

I recently wrote a post about how faith exists between idolatry and nihilism. To recap, the dominant expressions of faith within a culture will be idolatrous and fake. Here in America, that means most of the Christianity we behold is idolatrous and fake. Given how ugly and noxious American Christianity has become, many Christians head for the exit doors. They reject the idolatry and embrace nihilism, a worldview evacuated of the sacred and the holy. They become secular, liberal humanists. Angry, sad, and despairing. Were you aware that political liberalism is negatively correlated with mental health?

And so, it seems like there are no good options. Christianity, in its mainstream expression, is toxic. But embracing the void is no good either. So, what to do?

I’ve seen a lot of Christians, friends of mine and members of my church, stuck between this rock and hard place. They feel that the Christianity they know to be true to Jesus is suffering a hostile alien takeover. The church is experiencing an invasion of the body snatchers. Wanting to separate themselves—in protest, prophetic rebuke, and social distancing related to their own version of purity culture—they publicly reject Christianity, walk away from church, and wander off into the spiritual-not-religious fog.

I totally get this angry departure. Truly, I deeply sympathize. But I’m here today to say that I think the better option is what I’ll call “The Father Jud Option.”

What is the Father Jud Option? It’s simple. First, in the face of the toxic witness of all the Msgr. Wickses, don’t leave the church. Don’t jettison the faith. Don’t renounce Christianity. Next, as you remain, don’t be angsty, conflicted, wavering, doubtful, embarrassed, cynical, angry, bitter, resentful, hopeless, and despairing. Stay, instead, and shine. Don’t abandon the faith to the ugly. And don’t let the ugly in the church curdle your peace and joy. Point, rather, to the beautiful. Be like Father Jud.

This, then, is the Father Jud Option. Remain, and be beautiful. For when we behold the beautiful, just as Benoit Blanc does, it is a Damascus road experience.

"Incarnation"

Unexpected proximity,
this nearness interrupting,
yet digestible.
Our minds able to wrap
    this arrival.
Incomprehensibility not
     our complaint.
It is the scandal, rather,
    of straw and blood.
The offense of ancestry.
A pungent odor
    of manure and sweat.
A condescension intolerable
so convergent
     upon flesh and bone.

"How very good and pleasant it is when kindred live together in unity!"

Psalm 133 is a short psalm of praise for the blessings of close-knit family and community. This is a blessing increasingly rare these days. As I describe in The Shape of Joy America is experiencing an epidemic of loneliness. So much so in 2023 the Surgeon General released a health advisory warning about the lethality of social isolation. Loneliness is just as likely to kill you as being a pack a day smoker. We've reached the social end game that Robert Putnam predicted when he wrote Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community in 2000.

What's especially sad about all this his how we're actively choosing this unhappiness. Also in 2023 the Wall Street Journal polled Americans about what they believed was "very important" in life. Here's some of the findings:

Notice the trends on religion, having children, and community involvement. Americans are valuing these things less and less. Compare that to the trend regarding the importance of money. That trend is going up.

To be sure, the economy is rough right now. We're all concerned about affordability. Money is important. But relative to past generations, globally, and world-historically, we doing okay. And yet, we're increasingly valuing money over community, connection, and relationship. No wonder our collective mental health is fraying. 

I'm put in mind of a Dietrich Bonhoeffer quote that I've shared many times before concerning how community mediates grace:

Help must come from the outside...God has willed that we should seek and find God’s living Word in the testimony of other Christians, in the mouths of human beings. Therefore, Christians need other Christians who speak God’s Word to them. They need them again and again when they become uncertain and disheartened because, living by their own resources, they cannot help themselves without cheating themselves out of the truth...The Christ in their own hearts is weaker than the Christ in the word of other Christians. Their own hearts are uncertain; those of their brothers and sisters are sure.