One of the things I confront often enough is the unconscious expectation that the religion of Radix Fidem could become a movement of some sort. That expectation is part of the activist urge that traps people’s minds, in the sense that it keeps the intellect in command of conscious activity.
This is the soul of our calling to humanity as a whole: The answers are not in your head, nor will they ever be. It requires a higher faculty, a mighty leap most people will not make, never mind why. If we could explain it, we wouldn’t be talking about mysticism, but something else.
Talking about mysticism is exceedingly difficult. Demonstrating it is only slightly easier. It is deeply, fundamentally personal, as is the nature of reality itself. If I tell you that reality itself is alive, conscious and has a will, you would have to recognize that saying so is more than metaphor, yet not entirely literal. All I’ve done is characterize our experience with it, not something in the nature of the thing itself. The thing itself is impossible to express largely because it is so personal; it builds on the very nature of our individuality. It depends entirely on our uniqueness, and this is what is so very hard to translate between any two individuals.
So we can share a consciousness of communion in the results, and perhaps something in the path to that result, but only in the sense of what we all have to reject. It’s part of our shared fallen nature: We are so utterly cut off from our Creator and so unspeakably isolated and lonely that the pain is impossible to process without committing suicide. We are left with the only “sane” choice of denying it and acting as if we could create that lost communion some other way. We refuse to let the Flaming Sword at the entrance to Eden do its work out of some instinctive fear, but it’s the one form of “suicide” that actually brings relief. The communion we gain as believers is some ineffable gift that drives us onto that blade of revelation, and having been changed by it, we realize there is something we can share. We might still be stuck in the Fallen Realm, but a part of us has moved beyond that.
So name I give my religion — Radix Fidem — is just a handle, not the thing itself. Call it what you like, because you can’t deal with it unless you come up with a handle that fits your grip. Even if you adopt my label, it still has to have your own hand print, a mark of your unique individuality. God calls individuals into His Realm, not masses. There are some general characterizations we can offer to help you make sense of it, but God does not offer exactly the same terms to every individual. No two of us bring the same precise collection of wounds.
Yet there remains a certain tendency to share common experiences such that some of us are closer to each other than we are to the rest. We have to get over our silly mythology of fairness and equality imposed as an orthodoxy. I can’t love everyone the way I love my wife. By the same token, she cannot own all of my time and energy when God demands I give some to others He calls alongside. God has revealed certain general boundaries — I won’t have sex with other folks — but that leaves an awful lot of other ways we can express affection and communion. Some of you will always be closer than others, and nothing I can do will ever quell any feelings of jealousy in fallen humans. All I can do is help you fight them for yourself.
So the really tough part of this is the half-in/half-out nature of our existence in the Fallen Realm while belonging wholly to the Eternal Realm. That’s what the Bible addresses, that in-between existence and how it can be so utterly sweet and loving. That’s what we try to share. I was sickened at the sight of book title in a Christian bookstore yesterday. The title obviously insists that holiness is a matter of orthodoxy — right thinking. The blurb on the cover and advertising material asserted that all your emotional problems could be settled if you would just make your mind accept the right propositions. That’s the foundation of movements, things conceived and built by man under the false assumption that it reflects God’s requirements. Cerebral religion serves a false god of the intellect, a god restricted to what men can control.
So long as God enables it, this blog as the point of contact with the Internet for my faith, will continue. This is the door to our parish church house, insofar as such a thing could be. That’s about as close as we will come to the shortcut of “invite your friends to church.” And if you have your own blog speaking your own faith, there’s nothing wrong with asking about linking, but there’s also nothing wrong with simply promoting your own message instead of mine. It might be amusing to someday have a webring of sorts, but I’m not sure I want to be the one who decides the boundaries of inclusion and exclusion. If you sense a call to sponsor something like that, then you draw the boundaries. Please don’t see it as whining and begging if I tell you I am a little short on resources for more than what I do already. I’ll tell you the sad tale of my relative poverty if you like, but I refuse to make any fund-raising appeals. It works a whole lot better if you come up with that idea on your own, between you and God.
Much more valuable to me is when you share with me any report of how your faith is stronger from sampling my writing here. Better yet, tell others who read this blog. Throw me flowers if you like, but let’s keep the focus on the faith we share. Help me avoid all the failures and bondage of mainstream Western religions by avoiding the obvious bad habits. You honor me best by having your own story to tell. That’s because our greatest benefit is to share in His glory, not our own.
