Language fails (as this sentence demonstrates) when we try to convey the overlapping unity of love and persons in God, a triune swirl of inter-relatedness in which we are invited to swim. I comfort myself that Jesus, at least as his remarks are rendered in John’s Gospel, seemed to have almost as much trouble making it clear:
“In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will live. On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me; and those who love me will be loved by my Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them.”
Where does Jesus end and the Father begin? Where do we end and Jesus begin? Are we in the Father and in Jesus, or vice versa, or (g) all of the above? The answer is (g)… maybe (z). God is love. Jesus is love. We love and are loved, and so are drawn into the eternal and present Love of God.
When we fall in love with someone, there is often a period where identities merge. We don’t want to be separate people. We want to fuse, to lose ourselves in the glorious other, whose every word and movement is wondrous. This is an intoxicating stage of in-love-ness – and it’s not forever. If the relationship is to grow and strengthen, we need to differentiate again, to carry our own identities, loving and respecting the other person, being with but not needing to be one with.
So is Jesus saying we lose our identity when we let the love of God become a part of us, and we of God? I don’t think so. The Christian tradition suggests that each of us is unique and precious. Our self does not get obliterated as we enter the stream of God’s love. Rather, being loved for who we are allows us to become more fully who we truly are, shedding the inauthentic carapaces and personas we grow to protect ourselves and cope with adversity.
We don’t lose ourselves swimming in God’s love any more than we do when we swim in the vast, refreshing ocean. Rather, we are fully alive. We are contained in our bodies, and yet somehow one with a primal element. We exult as we move in that unbounded water, which allows us to dive and dance and turn somersaults and ride waves, all kinds of things we can’t do on land, just as dwelling in God's love enables us to do and think and say and offer all kinds of things we can’t in our natural selves.
Today in prayer let's go swimming. Imagine a waterfall flowing into the sea. Let’s say the sea is the Love of God, the waterfall is Jesus, and the spray that rises as they meet is the Holy Spirit. This sea is always being renewed, refreshed, replenished, the water one, so you don’t know what’s sea, what’s waterfall, what’s spray. Imagine jumping in. How does the water feel? How does it make you feel? How do you want to move in it?
If this is God’s love – how does it feel to be immersed in love? How would you share the water with others? How would you invite others to join you in that pool?
Swimming in the love of God allows us to access the source of Love that has no limit, so that we love out of the reservoir of God’s infinite love, not our own limited supply. As we enter the summer “swimming season,” I hope you’ll have lots of opportunities to be reminded of the water in which we were reborn, in which we will swim always. Splash!
No comments:
Post a Comment