I am the Innermost Being of Man and of Matter

Later I learned that there are some interpretations of quantum mechanics that use the notion of a universal consciousness to explain how an electron in one part of the universe can be in perfect synch with an electron in another part of the universe without any physical interaction between them.  I was not aware of that at the time, but I had just read about dark matter and dark energy, “dark” because they cannot be seen but only inferred from gravitational and other effects.  The mass of these previously unsuspected components are now thought to far exceed the total visible mass in the universe.

Yes, you should look into those.  Think of it—most of what is in the universe is unnoticed.  It is inferred from gross phenomena, but it is inferred as force.  Think of the human body.  It is moved by the mind.  How?  Where is the mind?  The mind is throughout the body.  Its actions are registered, but it is not noticed.  I am not noticed.  But in fact I am seen everywhere, and I am in the innermost being of man and in the innermost being of matter.  Do not have contempt for matter.  It is not the inert stuff of certain old theories.  It is vital and alive and a part of Me.  The interaction of mind and matter is part of Me, and I am the vehicle through which it takes place.

 

“I Am Enacting the Plan.”

“Lord, do I understand this correctly:  You are emerging, self-creating perhaps, out of Nothing?”

This is correct.  It is not quite right to say that I “always” existed.  I did come into being, and before Me, there was only Nothing, and there is a sense in which I was present in the Nothing.  There was no time, in the usual sense, then.  There was no matter, no energy, no events.

As I emerged, I had to figure out Who I Was, and What Was to Happen.  You (human beings) talk about God’s plan, but I am enacting the Plan, a Plan binding on Me and not just made up by Me.  The Plan is the scheme, as I have figured it out, of how things should be.  My role is less (that) of (an) organizer than of (the) goal or telos.

Telos is the Greek word for aim, purpose, or function, as in “teleological.”

I   draw things in the right direction, like flowers to the sun. 

 

“Putting Me first Rather than Last.”

I had now accepted the assignment, but God wanted more. He wanted me to “purify” myself.

You need purification. Transformation is a good word. It is obedience, which at its fullest is transformation.

“What does that involve, Lord?”

Putting Me first rather than last. Living every moment, making every decision, in response to My call.

“How do I go about doing that?”

You know this—start every day with prayer and let prayer guide you through the day.

“They Were Naked and Knew No Shame.”

God continued telling me about the truth behind the Garden of Eden story.

I had also underestimated the power of love.  First, I created Adam and I could see that he was alone, as I had once been, and this was not good.  He did not see it because he did not know anything different.  But, as he tried to befriend various animals, he would quickly reach the limit of those relationships and be frustrated and unfulfilled.  So I created woman and made her lovely in his eyes.  They were naked and knew no shame.  And their sexuality was intense and profound.

And, frankly, I felt left out.  I had no such consort.  And, while obedient, man loved woman more than Me.  Though understandable in light of the human nature I had given them, it was not right.  And they knew it was not right and began to disobey Me.  They hid their nakedness, which is to say, they hid their creativity and sexuality from Me, detached it from My purpose and used it solely for their own pleasure and intimacy—innocently enough, as children might do, but still wrong.  And so, with regret, I expelled them to a life of hardship.  Detached sexuality, hiding from God, has its own intrinsic price, the loss of the full bounty and blessing of God.

Pure being is not an abstraction but a living force.

To the philosophers and theologians, feelings, along with other affects, are weaknesses.  So God is regarded as passionless, so passionless that it is difficult to see how He can love.  St. Anselm puzzles over how a passionless God can be com-passionate.  His solution is that “we experience the effect of compassion, but Thou dost not experience the feeling.”  You can see the logical puzzle: we experience God’s love, but God feels no love for us.  For the philosophers, even to speak of a personal God is at best a metaphor or analogy.  But, in my experience, God is not a metaphor.  He is a Person to whom we can pray, who can give us guidance about our lives.  However, I was told,

They have some aspects of Me right.

“What do they have right?”

They understand that I am pure Being, Being unto itself.  They understand My metaphysical essence.  They do not understand My dynamic existence, a force …

“A Person?”

… yes, and a Person.  They use these categories in a way that makes them mutually exclusive, but they are not.  Pure Being is not an abstraction but a living force, focused personally.  Do not avoid metaphysics, but always listen to Me or you will go on the wrong track.

The Consequences of Actions Are What They Are

Like a slick lawyer, I shifted my line of questioning.  “Lord, are You saying that, if someone really believed that he or she could do something, like jumping over the moon, they could do it even if it violated the laws of nature?”

No, even I operate under the constraint of physical laws.  This talk about what other physical laws I might have decreed is wrong-headed.  The consequences of actions are what they are—I don’t make them up.  The relations of matter and energy, the speed of light, etc., are fixed.  In that sense, there are no other possible worlds.  Every world would have these same relations of act to consequence.

 

Putting Me First Rather Than Last

 

I had now accepted the assignment, but God wanted more.  He wanted me to “purify” myself.

You need purification.  Transformation is a good word.  It is obedience, which at its fullest is transformation.

“What does that involve, Lord?”

Putting Me first rather than last.  Living every moment, making every decision, in response to My call.

“How do I go about doing that?”

You know this—start every day with prayer and let prayer guide you through the day.

“The World is All Part of Me.”

“Is this connected with the idea of Nature as the Body of God?”

Yes, but it is a clumsy metaphysics.  What is valid is the respect in which the world is all part of Me.  But (it is) not correct to say, (in a) reductionist (way), that I am merely the physical world.  There are levels of mind and spirit not apparent in the (physical) world. 

“The Great Apes Are Wonderful Creatures . . . So Close But Yet So Far.”

 

“And so, Lord, You call forth the first human beings?”

Yes, the first inklings, forerunners, of man.  The great apes are wonderful creatures, full of intelligence, energy, and drive.  But it is frustrating to interact with them.  They are so close and yet so far from having full interactive personalities.  They have teleological urges but they are only effective, for the most part, at the biological level.  Their social life is rudimentary and their spiritual awareness is diffuse and inarticulate.  They lack a symbolic order.  They can’t project ideals beyond the sensual.  They can’t respond to Me either.

“But they evolved?”

The transition to early man is both slow and sudden.  Remember what the first two years of a child’s life is like, and (then) imagine each day to be a century.  In a sense, nothing is happening.  One day looks much like the last, and there is no single great leap forward.

So imagine My excitement when the first protohumans arrived.  At first, you couldn’t tell them from animals but I could see their potential.  They didn’t have language but their sounds and marks had representative purposes.  They could connect one thing to another, one thought to another.  They could remember their past and replay it in their minds.  They slowly developed a sense of the future.

“A Step in the Right Direction”

Nilsson says, “Another step in the development of polytheism was thinking of the great forces of nature (such as sky and seasons) and of human life (such as love and death) as gods.”

Yes, and the same story applies there.  It is quite apt, and not incompatible with understanding a single divine reality behind them all.  In fact, seeing them as gods—as personal beings with desires, plans, loves, and so forth—is a step in the right direction, of acknowledging that God is a Person and one with whom one can interact.

“Lord, did the polytheistic response affect You in any way?”

Oh yes, in many ways.  When someone sensed My presence in a place and responded respectfully, it increased My awareness of My presence there, and of what it was about Me that evoked and deserved respect.

Then I was given an analogy.

Sometimes someone might be the pillar of a particular institution and not realize their distinctive role until a crisis.  And they notice that everyone rallies around them or sees them as their savior or seeks their advice or expects them to get them through it.  In a sense, they were the pillar all along, but it was almost latent and not fully actualized until the occasion arose and they saw it reflected in the eyes of others.

I gather that God’s experience was something like that.