A Sound of Sheer Silence

A while back in this space, I told a story about my first really significant encounter with a personal faith .  It was an experience that came about via the medium of stories, more specifically the stories of this particular person named Jesus who lived a long time ago in a far off place.  I wouldn't have had that vocabulary at the time, but it was a "poetic" experience and encounter.  It wasn't like I read what was said in the Gospel passages and concluded that the "arguments" it was making or the facts that were laid out seemed correct.  Instead, my reaction happened in a different key, on a more emotional and symbolic and abstract level.  Indeed, the reaction occurred at a moment when I was very consciously and very explicitly struggling with the "prose" dimensions of the faith I was being taught.  And nothing in that experience really changed that struggle, except in the sense that it pointed to some other dimension to this whole faith thing, s...

A while back in this space , I wrote about a book entitled Learning to Walk in the Dark by Barbara Brown Taylor.  The core idea, concept of "lunar faith" as contrasted with "solar faith," was a home run for me.  Many people, maybe even most people, either have or want a faith that is solar--it provides clarity and definition and warmth pretty much all the time.  A faith that has shadows and soft edges, one that masks almost as much as it reveals, would be counter to what they are seeking out of this whole faith project.  I get it, and I can't say I haven't looked to bathe in that solar light.  But I find myself drawn to that softer moonlight, and more to the point I get itchy when there is too much sunlight.  I need things to be a little fuzzy, whether that's because I need the mental space to imagine what is there, or because I'm not quite ready to fully confront what is there, or just because there is a beauty to that fuzziness. But what does luna...

μόνος, or "monos," means "single" or "only."  θεός, or "theos," means god, originally in the sense of entities like Zeus or Athena.  Together, it is pretty straight-forward--monotheism is a assertion that there is "a single god."  Fair enough. But, within this framework, there are actually a number of permutations.  Rather than spell them all out in the beginning, I'll cut to the case--I believe in and interpret monotheism in the maximum possible way.  I believe there is one and only one divine, transcendent principle, period.  And that singular divine principle, as Aquinas would say, "everyone calls God."  Now, I understand that singular divine principle to be compatible with the assertion that the Son of God came to earth and lived among us, but for the purposes of this reflection that thorny issue is not really relevant, so let's set it to the side. So, only one divine, transcendent principle.  This means, by defini...