One of the joys of experiencing a good TV show or book for the second or third time is that familiar lines arrive with new depth and meaning. Such has been the case for me recently as my wife and I have watched "Battlestar Galactica" and my thoughts have dwelt on a particular quote whose truth has become strikingly apparent:
To know the face of God is to know madness.
"I open my eyes and I see you … I close my eyes and I hear you … I cannot escape you; but why would I want to? You are beauty, glory, joy, ecstasy, and the shiver up my spine when I feel your touch upon my soul … You radiate in birth and death, in moans of pleasure and cries of agony, in our happiness and our pain … I feel this every moment and it overwhelms me. It pushes me to the brink of sanity and I am not sure I want to step back. I cannot escape you, and I do not want to."
This is not the faith of corporate religion or conventional wisdom. They prattle on about it being sensible and normal. They associate it with tradition, conservatism, and order. What fools we all are! The Church tells us that God became human, so that we could become God. Is that sensible or normal? What sort of order could possibly come from encouraging humans to take in the view from our Parent's eyes?
"From your perspective, you see love and hate, good and evil, right and wrong. I see what is and what will be, and what I see is love and good, always."
Ever since I embarked on this journey, I feel like I have been falling deeper and deeper down the rabbit hole. I lived with this revelation for so many years, but only started to live it after freeing it from its cage in my head. Each day, my vision becomes more and more wonderfully disoriented. And each day, the human perspective seems sillier and more superficial. Perhaps that is why I have such a difficult time finding the right words for this blog; for I am tasked with translating sacred murmurings into a language from which I find myself increasingly disconnected. But how could it be any other way?
"In that moment, in that very moment, whether it lasts a second or a lifetime, you know that you have touched the face of the divine. Whatever name you want to call him or her or it, you have touched that face and you will never be the same. Nothing will ever be the same again. You may try to bury the image, pretend it doesn't exist, but there it will be, forever and ever. Always lingering, always waiting, always hoping."
"I cannot escape you, and I never will. Thank you my friend."
Will you join me in this most delicious madness?