Lectio:
“The universe unfolds in God, who fills it completely. Hence, there is a mystical meaning to be found in a leaf, in a mountain trail, in a dewdrop, in a poor person’s face.”
— Pope Francis, Laudato Si’ (On Care for Our Common Home)
Meditatio:
It has been said that “either God is everything or else He is nothing. God either is, or He isn’t” (anonymous). With all of the evil, hatred, and destruction in the world, this can be a difficult proposition to accept. Is God a child’s leukemia? Is God a school shooting? Is He genocide or a nuclear explosion? When we imagine an all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-loving Creator of the universe, we think not, or at least we hope not.
And so we tell ourselves that either God is not real, that all of this simply happened, that all life and matter came into being from nothing, out of nothing, and for nothing; that God is real but that He doesn’t care about us; or that God is real and He created a perfect world without death or destruction until we chose to sin, and that all of the world’s evils are the result of that sin and the brokenness it brought into being—a brokenness we continue to choose to partake in.
There is another option, however, and that is that we simply do not know. That we have to make a decision—a decision perhaps based on our experience, our intellect, or on faith—and that this decision will determine what we think about the world and one another, how we act in the world and toward one another, and how we experience the world and one another. That, like Adam and Eve, we must choose to eat from either “the tree of life [or] the tree of the knowledge of good and evil” (Genesis 2:9). That we can either choose to know what is good and what is evil, what is God and what is not, or we can choose life.
To choose knowledge of good and evil is to choose a dualistic attitude wherein we are constantly torn between what we believe is true or false, right or wrong, good or evil, or God or not God, based on our own limited understanding. This, we are told in Genesis, is to choose death (Genesis 2:16). When Job questions God and the suffering he feels he unjustly experiences in his life, God’s response is essentially, “How do you know what is right and what is wrong, what is just or unjust, what is good or what is evil, what is of God or not of God, when you are not God, who alone knows these things?” (Job 38–41). To choose knowledge of good and evil—that is, what is God and what is not God—to choose dualistic thinking, therefore, is to choose to suffer under the weight of our own limited understanding, and therefore to die to the life and love that are constantly unfolding in God.
Alternatively, we can choose life. We can choose to admit our limitations, to accept our place in the world, and to concede our limited understanding. We can “Trust in the Lord with all [our] heart and lean not on [our] own understanding; in all [our] ways submit to Him, and He will make [our] paths straight” (Proverbs 3:5–6). That is, we can let go of our dualistic way of thinking and choose humility before God; to allow His wisdom to unfold within and before us, trusting that only He truly knows what is true and false, right and wrong, good and evil, and what is of God or not of God.
This is not to say that there is no such thing as true or false, right or wrong, or good or evil, but that allowing God to reveal these to us, instead of pridefully deciding them ourselves, is the path of life and love. For God is love, and He—not our dualistic thinking—is the way, the truth, and the life, and only through His Way, His Truth, and His Life may we have Eternal Life (1 John 4:8; John 14:6; John 3:16).
Likewise, to say that we are to let go of our dualistic thinking is not to say that we should be undiscerning, but that we are to entrust our discernment to the Lord who, alone, “is trustworthy in all He promises and faithful in all He does” (Psalm 145:13). That we are to trust His Spirit to discern within us. In this way, we allow God to reveal Godself to, for, and through us in His way, through His ever-unfolding love, even through those things in which we, on our own, would not or could not see Him, saying, like Jesus, “Not my will, but yours be done” (Luke 22:42).
Oratio:
Is there anywhere I can go
where I will not find you
around every bend
of every winding path
you are there to greet me
in every flower
whose face smiles at the sun
I see you smiling too
in a mountain stream
where fish jump
and children play
I hear your voice calling me
in the winter snow
the rains of spring
the summer sun
and the autumn breeze
I feel your loving touch
is there anywhere I can go
where I will not find you
not if I am willing to look
Contemplatio:
Where in my life might God already be present and unfolding love, even in places I struggle to understand or accept?
Scripture:
“Where can I go from your Spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence?” — Psalm 139:7 (NRSVCE)
For Further Reading:
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~Robert Van Valkenburgh
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