I’m about to embark with Catherine Keller into a theological quest forged from process thought. I hold On the Mystery: Discerning Divinity in Process. The book cover is kind to touch. The cover has a great finish. The smell is fine, fine in the cultivated sense. We’re off to a good start.
There’s a bit more to flesh to this context, Catherine Keller has been recommended to me by Sam Mickey. His blog is Becoming Integral: Existence in the Planetary Era and can be found here: http://becomingintegral.wordpress.com/ I have fondly followed Sam’s scholarship for some time and I find his directions inspiring.
I pick up Keller’s book the quotes are luring and thick:
My distress is great and unknown to men.
They are cruel to me, for they wish to dissuade me
From all that the forces of Love urge me to.
They do not understand it, and I cannot explain it to them.
I must then live out what I am;
What Love counsels my spirit,
In this is my being: for this reason I will do my best.
—HADEWIJCH
Later in Keller’s chapter, “Risk the Adventure” she makes reference to A.N. Whitehead’s worship of God as a “flight after the unattainable.” I imagine this is why the above remarks begin with distress. What I seek is beyond the horizon of possibility, yet still I make my way. This is how I have felt in relationship to mine own dreams. In relationship to Glide, a Planetary Ministry of Liberation. They are dreams. That’s their purpose… to remain a lure, to hold the charge of adventure before me. The felt sense of judgment that we encounter is a consequence of this pursuit. Whitehead says that, “The worship of God is not a rule of safety…” We loose ourselves reaching toward the perfect day. Our ships sails get caught in cross winds out of our control and we feel the waning flow of our own creativity; at times we feel this as judgment and in others grace, but nonetheless it is our connection with God.
Glory Be to God,
Amen.