Unpacking "Original Sin" ~ Dabhar (the Word)

As I continue to type out my thoughts, my observations, the unfolding insights that I'm discovering (because really, I cannot *help* myself from sharing these things), I often wonder who is reading along ... and if it matters beyond me needing to process this stuff, by getting it *out*, so that I can better see it, so that it becomes part of me, and, also, so that I can sleep...!

What I'm about to unpack strikes me as profoundly foundational. It explains what has gone wrong within religion (particularly western Christianity), what has permeated our culture, and why we're all held in the pernicious grip of unrelenting fear.

It's important.

It's my hope that this message will get out, not because I, or my view, is so important, but because of how we need to be awakened to what IS, rather than being mesmerized by what we have long-thought is.

If you can stay with me, if you can engage with this unfolding message, if you can allow yourself to taste and see, and to question your own thinking/believing, I dare to believe that you will be blessed, if not transformed.

Yeah, it's that important.

But, I want you to discover that for yourself, rather than merely taking my word for it. Enough with following humans -- I desire to inspire everyone to follow the Spirit.

First, some quotes from some insightful-mystics through the ages:

"The Word is a living, being, spirit, all verdant greening, all creativity. This Word manifests itself in every creature." (Hidegarde of Bingen)

"Every creature is a word of God and is a book about God." (Meister Eckhart)

"Creation not only exists, it also discharges truth ... wisdom requires a surrender, verging on the mystical, of a person to the glory of existence." (Gerhard Von Rad)

"When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe ... No particle is ever wasted or worn out, but eternally flowing from use to use." (John Muir)

"The word that goes forth from My mouth does not return to Me empty." (God, through Isaiah 55:11)

According to Matthew Fox, in his (brilliant! must-read!) book, "Original Blessing", "In the West, a theology of the word of God has practically killed the word of God."

The word for "word" in scripture, is "Dabhar" -- and it does not mean what we think it means (surprise, surprise!). Left-brain thinking, which dominated the Enlightenment era (& thus Protestant thinking), and which continues to dominate our culture, has myopically linked the concept of the "Word/Dabhar" of God with the verbal (written/spoken) word.

In order to understand the biblical concept of Word/Dabhar, we have to return to the pre-verbal era of original creation ... prior to computers, televisions, radios, books, printing presses ... back when the spoken word of story, of being, of creation, birthed all that we know and see.

Scripture speaks of Wisdom being with God, being of God, from the beginning, before anyTHING was. All of creation is permeated with this Word, this Wisdom, this Dabhar of God. Including humanity.

Dabhar is the creative energy of God -- the Wisdom of God. It incorporates Power, Purpose, Goodness, Love. It inspires the response of love, awe and trust.

According to Meister Eckhart, "Nature itself is the primary scripture." Paul backs this up in the first chapter of Romans. Creation itself, not just books and teachings, is a source of truth and revelation -- speaking this revelation to us continually, without ceasing, if we would but see and receive. Are we listening? Are we awake? Can we get our minds out of the human-made books, even the most revered of them, enough to sense and be vulnerable to the ongoing creative energy of God...?

What would we learn if we could see, could hear, this creation-song of the Dabhar of God..?

We would become aware that there is but One Flow, One Divine Energy ... One Divine Word of creative energy flowing through all humans, all things, all time, all space ... that we are part of that flow, and we need to heed it, rather than to arrogantly assume that the words of man are the only Words of God.

We need to fall in love with what IS, rather than what we have projected out of the limited mind of mankind. We need to enter the new creation, the new heavens and earth (which are at hand, in our midst, within us), and let go of the teachings of man, the death-filled, fear-based ways of existing, and LIVE the Abundant Life.

Dabhar implies more than just words ... it is also action. Doing, not just talking. Creating, not just rhapsodizing verbally. Walking the talk.

Dabhar cannot be suppressed or thwarted ... God's energy cannot be aborted. Creation continues to create. God's Life is a great river that no one can re-route, dam, or stop ... and we can join this River of Life, and let it carry us in a wild adventure of pure abandonment, joining God as He heals, celebrates, creates...!

Greater things can we do than Jesus did ... at least, according to Jesus.

Dabhar is not heavy, plodding, demanding. Instead, it is active, playful and imaginative ... child-like (but not childish). A creation-centered human is aware, awake, sensitive ... alive, alert, ever-astonished with joy ... alluring and accepting, approachable and inspirational.

Creation is not, as the fundamentalists would assert, locked in the "glory days" of the past ... nor is it elusively-immanent in the distant "soon coming, utopia-bringing" future. It is here and now, ongoing, ever-Present, ever-ongoing, growing, vast, in and around us, and yet beyond us.

Humanity is a uniquely holy container for God's Holy Dabhar ...

As Meister Eckhart declares:

"Everything of the past
and everything of the present
and everything of the future
God creates
in the innermost realms of the soul."

The Kingdom is in our midst ~ INQUIRE WITHIN...

Shalom, Dena

P.S. Next, unmasking "original sin"...!