Who’s Your God?

 Saint Bonaventure (1221-1274), who was the Minister General of the Franciscan Order, defined God as a "circle whose centre is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere." This is a definition of God that resonates with me.  This is, at least in part, because it is a paradox.  After all, how can a circle have a centre everywhere and have no circumference?  And yet, for me, this definition of God seems to sum up God better than any other definition I have encountered. 

This paradox gets at the problem of trying to define God.  How can we define the undefinable.  Any definition we have is, of necessity, incorrect because it limits God which is unlimited.  However, the paradox is that we have to define God to try and understand what we are talking about.  Of course, theologians, clergy and all kinds of people have been defining God ever since the cavemen (and women) gathered round their fires and looked at the night sky and made symbols on the walls of caves.

We can say that God is eternal but people will misunderstand that eternity is not a long time, it is outside of time as we know it.  Again, we can try and define eternity – one on-line source defines it this way, “a state to which time has no application; timelessness.”  However, it is beyond our understanding of time – at least Chronos time which is the time that we experience each day with the sun rising and setting and we move one day further from our birth and one day closer to our days on this earth running their course. In this, we are dealing with Kairos which an on-line source defines as, “the right time” from Ancient Greek, Kairos variously refers to an “opportune presentation” in rhetoric and a “spiritual opportunity” in Christian theology.

With all this I will put before you the question, what is the definition of the God you believe in – if you believe in God or a God.  If you don’t believe in God or a God, what is the God you don’t believe in?  In either case, are there aspects of God that possibly don’t fit into that definition?  Are you open to the possibility of encountering a God which doesn’t meet that definition?

In any case, I hope that whoever or whatever the God is that you encounter on your journey God will bless you as Jacob was blessed when he wrestled with the angel (God’s messenger).

 

 

What Time is it Anyway?

Yesterday, I commented to Lorna that it seemed we have been at the cottage for a lot longer than the three weeks we have been here.  She agreed with me which is nice because that doesn’t always happen.  In some ways, our time here has been timeless.  It always does to some extent but it seems more so this year perhaps because most of this time has been in quarantine and focussed around getting tested for COVID and getting our second shot which happened last week.  There has been a sense that one day flows into the next without too much to differentiate one day from the other.  In any case, I want to be clear that it has been a very pleasant time as it always is here at our Island home.

That experience of timeless time does raise a question for me about time and our focus on time in our culture today.  Our culture is very much ruled by time and time is to a greater or lesser extent our master.  We are used to measuring our days by what we have scheduled which, of course, is governed by time to a great extent.  This is less so when we are retired – our schedules are more flexible but there are still the surprizing number of activities which we participate in – numerous Zoom events which are scheduled to begin at a particular time – meeting and lectures and workshops and classes.  Zoom seems to have become pervasive in our lives along with the occasional Skype meeting. 

Another aspect of time is its flexible nature.  I’m sure that you are aware of how time can seem to slow down or speed up.  Sometimes a few minutes seem an eternity and sometimes an hour or more can seem to go by in the flash of an eye.  I have said before and will say it again that the longest two minutes in my life has been the two minutes of silence in a Remembrance Day Service.  This, of course, has nothing to do with it not being significant – just the opposite.  Every second of that silence holds deep significance. 

Exploring the issue of timelessness further, when we move from time to timelessness, we are entering the area of God’s time versus our time.  In timelessness we can speak of eternity.  Eternity does not mean a long time.  Eternity is beyond time – it is a state in which time does not exist.  This is something which is difficult for most of us to grasp.  We are like fish swimming in the water of linear time.  Our lives are measured by time which passes – things begin and end.  We wake up in the morning and check what time it is if we are fortunate enough not to be woken up by an alarm clock.  We begin an activity at a particular time and end it after the passage of time.  Time flows on and there seems to be no stopping it.  As the Joni Mitchell song says, “it won't be long now, till you drag your feet to slow the circles down.”  

When we move into timelessness and eternity we are moving from our time to God’s time.  I have been listening to recordings of Northrop Frye’s lectures on the Bible and Literature https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4Swyk_ZRy8.  He notes that the creation story in Genesis did not happen in linear time, it happens in God's time.  In effect it is a timeless event which is happening all the time. 

As Frye notes, the Bible speaks of time in two different ways; time is either Kairos or Chronos.  Simply put, Chronos is measurable time which has a beginning and an end.  Kairos, on the other hand, means an opportune time, a moment or a season such as harvest time.  Paul uses Kairos in the passage from Ephesians 5:15-16, “Be careful then how you live, not as unwise people but as wise, making the most of the time, because the days are evil.”  

If you have ever been caught in a moment when time seemed to stop or disappear, you have moved from Chronos to Kairos.  We need to be aware of when we want things to happen on our schedule, in Chronos and become aware that they sometimes happen in Kairos.  It is a reminder that as much as we like to believe it, we don’t often set the agenda.  That can be frustrating but it can also be liberating.

May you be blessed on your journey to experience it In Kairos and well as Chronos.            

The Circle Game

 Recently, I have had the new experience of entertaining on Zoom as part of the program for One Care which, of course, is not able to have its usual programs in person because of the Corona Virus.  I have done this three or four times so far and realized that I should try and expand my repertoire.  One of the ‘new’ songs I have been learning is The Circle Game by Joni Mitchell.  This is certainly not a new song and I was very familiar with it but have never learned to play and sing it which is very different than just listening to it or even singing along.

This is a song about the years going by and how things change in our lives.  The lyrics for one verse caught my attention as particularly applicable to the time we are in these days:

Sixteen springs and sixteen summers gone now
Cartwheels turn to car wheels thru the town
And they tell him take your time it won't be long now
Till you drag your feet to slow the circles down

This encapsulates the nature of time and how it is not a static concept.  Time is very elastic and can seem to slow down and speed up depending on what is going on in your life.  Have you noticed, as I have, that time in the shut down for the Corona Virus seem to go very slowly at the beginning back in the olden days in March but these days it seems to be getting faster and faster.  I don’t know about you, but I certainly want to drag my feet and slow time down at least a bit.  Some people who know a great deal more than I do about these things maintain that time doesn’t actually exist – it is a construct of our consciousness.  Einstein posited that as speed increases toward the speed of light time does indeed slow down and if someone was on a rocket to a distant heavenly body at a high-speed, time for them would be much slower than time would be for us on earth.  Scientist have actually tested this theory and proven it correct. 

In my experience, if I am doing an activity I enjoy, time can fly by without my being aware of it but if I am focused on time passing, it moves much more slowly – or seems to in any case.  The longest two minutes for me is the two minutes of silence at a Remember Day Service in which I count 120 seconds to ensure the silence is actually two minutes long – which seems to take forever.  I know I should be paying attention to honour those who made the supreme sacrifice but I find that difficult when I have the responsibility to ensure it is actually two minutes. 

The perception that time is speeding up is also a factor of age.  I’m sure those of you who are in the senior citizen category like me will have noted that time seems to be speeding up generally and is going by much more quickly than when we were young as the song poses.  I remember how long a week used to seem when I was growing up but then again, the week-ends did seem to fly by except possibly when I was attending a church service and my fathers sermon seems interminable – not a comment on his preaching as he was actually quite a good preacher. 

Theologians will often speak of God’s time not being our time as an explanation why things don’t happen on the schedule we lay out for events in the world or our lives.  Perhaps God does have an all-knowing view of the big picture and knows that “all shall be well and all manner of things shall be well,” as St. Julian of Norwich said.  After all, eternity is not a long time - it is outside time.  So, may I suggest that we drag our feet and slow down and notice how God is working in our lives and in the world. 

Blessings on your journey which I hope does not go by too quickly

Hawking for God

I saw a documentary on TVO last week that dealt with Stephen Hawking's 'proof' that there was no God. His argument, as I was able to understand it is based on the physics of black holes and the origin of the universe. Very simply put (I hope not simplistically), according to the theory of black holes, as you approach them time slows down. At the beginning of the universe, all matter was compressed into an unimaginably dense black hole which was infinitesimally small.

In this ultimate black hole time has stopped completely i.e. there is no time. Therefore God could not have operated before the creation of the universe by the big bang. What is surprising to me is that Hawking who is incredibly intelligent and sophisticated in respect to physics can have such a simplistic view of God. Why would Hawking restrict his concept of God in such a way that God could not operate outside of time. God as the creator of the universe must also create time. God's time is not the time that operates in the universe. God operates in eternity which is not a 'long time' but is outside time as we know it.

Hawking who contends he does not intend to upset people with his proof of the non-existance of God need not be worried as his proof is no proof.