faith is not believing, but doing


The Dark Night of the Soul
St John Of the Cross

On a dark night, 
Kindled in love with yearnings–oh, happy chance!–
I went forth without being observed, 
My house being now at rest.

In darkness and secure, 
By the secret ladder, disguised–oh, happy chance!–
In darkness and in concealment, 
My house being now at rest.

In the happy night, 
In secret, when none saw me,
Nor I beheld aught, 
Without light or guide, save that which burned in my 
heart.

This light guided me 
More surely than the light of noonday
To the place where he (well I knew who!) was awaiting me–
A place where none appeared.

Oh, night that guided me, 
Oh, night more lovely than the dawn,
Oh, night that joined Beloved with lover, 
Lover transformed in the Beloved!

Upon my flowery breast, 
Kept wholly for himself alone,
There he stayed sleeping, and I caressed him, 
And the fanning of the cedars made a breeze.

The breeze blew from the turret 
As I parted his locks;
With his gentle hand he wounded my neck 
And caused all my senses to be suspended.

I remained, lost in oblivion; 
My face I reclined on the Beloved.
All ceased and I abandoned myself, 
Leaving my cares forgotten among the lilies.

There are three laptops here, one I ordered refurbished from Apple in 2010. One I bought new for Kristen when she was at Bay High or as she started college, then got from her when we replaced it with a new one her senior year. One purchased during a sale event two or three years ago. All three work fine except that on the oldest, the revolving beachball is so infuriating that it mostly sits unused in a closet but may be, as this morning and now, got out noiselessly to muse when the rest of the condo is dark and asleep. And 7H porch dark and beautiful, silent, flat across StAndrewsBay, a few stars visible, but at 79°F 94% outside, inside is more comfortable sitting. 

Not having explored inside the old laptop for a while, I do that. Hidden deep somewhere is a piece on existential crisis that must have helped me at some point, otherwise I’d not have saved it. A link there takes me back to the exquisite poem of St. John of the Cross, which I do not regard as crisis-oriented as its title has come to mean, but spiritual: StJohn is going forth to encounter God. And yet, like much of Robert Frost, StJohn’s poem can be taken variously, including romantically, going out quietly at night to tryst with a lover.

But that just got in my path; it’s not where I wanted to go. Richard Rohr’s Daily Meditation for today, link below, caught me where I am. Not to go off scholarly, which I am not, indeed very far from, but St. Paul’s NT Greek at Romans 3:22 et al διὰ πίστεως Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ speaks not of “through faith in (dative) Jesus Christ” but “through faith of (genitive) Jesus Christ,” and to me arguments for dative understanding and “faith in” are eisegetical, going in with one’s preference and indeed coming out having rationalized it; specious. Not uncommonly, the generally more literal KJV has it right, as Father Rohr is right on this morning.

Just so with our baptismal covenant with God, where one’s believing is the basis for one’s living; and without living it, one’s claim to believe it is worthless skybalon, rubbish, blasphemy, contempt of God. It’s not belief, but life’s action that the proof is in. As said at 1 John 4:20, anyone who claims to love God but hates brother is a liar: one cannot love God if one hates others.

Which, not to go too far down that trail of briars, is where our broken and divided society is today, internationally too but, most anguishing, throughout our nation.

Anyway, back to battery, Father Rohr’s meditation is cut and pasted below in case the link doesn’t work.

DThos+ some’ers far downstream in +Time+  



Faith and Belief

Faith as Participation
Thursday, July 20, 2017

Many scholars have pointed out that what is usually translated in Paul’s letters as “faith in Christ” would be more accurately translated as “the faith of Christ.” It’s more than a change of prepositions. It means we are all participating—with varying degrees of resistance and consent—in the faith journey that Jesus has already walked. We are forever carried inside of the “Corporate Personality” that Jesus Christ always is for Paul (citations too numerous to count!). That’s a very different understanding of faith than most Christians enjoy.

Most people think having faith means “to believe in Jesus.” But, “to share in the faith of Jesus” is a much richer concept. It is not so much an invitation as it is a cosmic declaration about the very shape of reality. By myself, I don’t know how to have faith in God, but once we know that Jesus is the corporate stand in for everybody, we know we have already been taken on the ride through death and back to life. All we can do now is make what is objectively true fully conscious for us.

Remember, it’s God in you that loves God. You, on your own, don’t really know how to love God. It’s Christ in you that recognizes Christ. It’s the Holy Spirit, whose temple you are (see 1 Corinthians 3:16), that responds to the Holy Spirit. Like recognizes like. That’s why all true cognition is really recognition (“re-cognition” or knowing something again). Only so far as you have surrendered to Christ and allowed the Christ in you to come to fullness can you love Christ. It’s Christ in you that recognizes and loves Christ.

“Faith” is not an affirmation of a creed, an intellectual acceptance of God, or believing certain doctrines to be true or orthodox (although those things might well be good). Such intellectual assent does not usually change your heart or your lifestyle. I’m convinced that much modern atheism is a result of such a heady and really ineffective definition of faith.

Both Jesus’ and Paul’s notion of faith is much better translated as foundational confidence or trust that God cares about what is happening right now. This is clearly the quality that Jesus fully represents and then praises in other people.

God refuses to be known intellectually. God can only be loved and known in the act of love; God can only be experienced in communion. This is why Jesus “commands” us to move toward love and fully abide there. Love is like a living organism, an active force-field upon which we can rely, from which we can draw, and which we can allow to pass through us. I am afraid you can believe doctrines (e.g., virgin birth, biblical inerrancy, Real Presence in bread and wine, etc.) to be true and not enjoy such a radical confidence in love or God at all.
pic: "One Storm Away" from PB407.
This beautiful old dock on EBeachDrive was perfect when I was a boy and all my young decades. In recent years it has, left untended and unloved, rotted and crumbled storm by storm. The next major storm will surely take it away forever.