Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Original Blessing ~ PanENtheism ~ God as All in All

In music, in the sea, in a flower, in a leaf, in an act of kindness ... I see what people call god in all these things." (Pablo Casals)

"My Beloved is the mountains,
And lonely wooded valleys,
Strange islands,
And resounding rivers,
The whistling of love-stirring breezes,
The tranquil night
At the time of rising dawn,
Silent music,
Sounding solitude.
The supper that refreshes and deepens love." (John of the Cross)

"God is love - and anyone who lives in love lives in God, and God in her." (1 Jn 4:16)

"It is in God we live and move and have our being." (Paul in Acts 17:28)

"The day of my spiritual awakening was the day I saw - and knew I saw - all things in God and God in all things." (Mechtild of Magdeburg)

"We are in God, and God, whome we do not see, is in us." (Julian of Norwich - you go, girl!)

"God hugs you. You are encircled by the arms of the mystery of God." (Hildegarde of Bingen -- wonder if Hilde and Juli knew each other...?)

"Make your home in me, as I make mine in you. I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever remains in me, with me in him, bears plentiful fruit." (Jesus)

"Father may they be one in us, as you are in me and I am in you. I have given them the glory you gave to me, that they may be one as we are one. With me in them and you in me." (Jesus, again ... and read that one again, carefully ... dare to realize what He's saying...!)

"Matter is transparent and malleable in relation to spirit." (Teilhard de Chardin)

"I laugh when I hear the fish in the water is thirsty." (Kabir)

"What sort of God would it be, who only pushed from without?" (Goethe)


Jung wrote that one of the ways to lose your soul is to worship a god outside of you. The (popular and insane) notion that God is "out there somewhere" is likely the ultimate in dualism ... separating God and humanity, and minimizing a "relationship" with God to an immature state of either pleasing this distant God, or pleading with Him. This creates a subject/object relationship to God ...

But there's another way of seeing God ... Panentheism. Not pantheism. Pantheism says that everything is God and God is everything. PanENtheism says God is IN everything, and everything is IN God. There's a distinction there ... the former makes God irrelevant. The latter seems God as transcendent-Omnipresence.

As Meister Eckhart says, "We must learn to penetrate things and find God there."

As an artist, and as a writer, I recognize this, albeit on a much smaller scale ... my role is to become transparent ... a conduit for the creativity and Dabhar of God, flowing through the mediums of color, words, images ... for His life in me is the only life I have ... the only life there IS.

Panentheism is an awareness of the "amongness" of Immanuel -- God *with* us. Even as Jesus told us, in our midst, within us. This awareness draws us into inter-connectedness with all that is, with all others, even as the "otherness" fades ... we are able to celebrate group-immersion in God on one hand, and yet to enjoy the unique creativity of each amazing demonstration of the diversity of God, in each human being, on the other hand.

It can be said that Panentheism is a "mature" understanding of the Presence of God. It goes beyond seeing God as noun, or even God as verb ... Yes, God is love, and God is justice ... but even more profoundly, God is preposition ... God *with* us, God *in* us, God *of* us, and even, in dawns upon us, God *as* us...!

Shalom, Dena

9 comments:

Harry Riley said...

God is Pre-Position. I love it!
And yes, God As Us, Through Us.
We are 'God-Expressed' and God, Expressed.
I Am, but there is no Me.

I've just been watching a TV prog on the nature of consciousness and identity, as discovered by science! How's about that then! It confirms so much of what you've been writing about, Dena, although the presenter, an avowed 'atheist', could never quite bring himself to connect the dots. I was saying 'Yeah!' all the time!

That John of the Cross quote looks like it's from an updated translation of Dark Night of the Soul... or something very similar...

Namaste, my friend...

Dena said...

Ohhhh, I LOVE how the dots all connect, Harry...! The Spirit doesn't miss, nor waste, a thing!

Bob Harkema said...

I have been chatting with a lot of people lately who seem to think that if we connect the dots the picture is profane. I think they need new glasses.

Dena said...

Care to start a new club with me, y'all...?

Lens-Foisters.

LOL!

Sue said...

Oooooooooooooooh. Great post. What an awesome collection of quotes and comments.

I so agree that panentheism is a mature understanding of God. It's going beyond all the fear of punishment stuff, all the casting God as ourselves stuff, out to the beautiful field Rumi spoke of, beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing.

Jung's summations are fascinating, are they not? The way to lose your soul is to believe that God is "out there". Wow, don't that just rock your socks :)

I share your esteem for Julian of Norwich :)

Great post, Dena, thank you for sharing. I ate it with my breakfast.

Dena said...

I'm glad it was yummy and nourishing for you, Sue...!

I LOVE this international flair here ... two dudes in Great Britain, a gal in Australia, and another in Tokyo...!

And a whole slew of USers...

FUN!

Marian Scadden said...

Sometimes putting such thoughts into "practical" application seems difficult. Chris once presented Proverbs' "Where there is no vision, the people perish" to a Christian business group, then asked "how does your business reflect God? What's your vision for your business?" The answers varied but several answers boiled down to "I don't know" or "I'm just a [plumber, salesman, etc.]"

--side note: I tell you what, it was nothing short of a miracle and I was deeply grateful to the plumbers who came out quickly and fixed the broken pipes so our toilets would flush again! I love running water. I was happy to pay them for their services. It was no less of a blessing to us!--

Anyway...I don't think it's possible to compartmentalize one's life. We can say, "This is my business life and this is my home life and this is my exercise life and this is my spiritual life" but, regardless of how we think life is split up, the whole thing is still LIFE. And God is there throughout.

Dena said...

Excellent, brilliant, and wholly WHOLE Marian. I would expect no less from you (marvelous new photo, btw..!).

I agree ... life was never meant to be divided into "sacred" and "profane" ... (i.e., "profanus - outside the temple) ... if the Kingdom is at hand, within us ... in our midst, then nothing is "outside" the temple.

It's all sacred, all holy, all permeated by God.

(He gets around..!)

Thanks for chiming in, Marian ... I've missed seeing you!

Dena said...

And - oh YES, plumbers are by all means holy folks! I mean, if God speaks to me through the plumbing fixtures, and if said fixtures get clogged, well then ...

Conduits for God, they are...!