…a memory
from long ago. We were in some kind of
retreat, and we were all sitting around in a circle, and the leader, an earnest
soul, announced that each of us in turn around the circle was going to answer
the question, “What is my image of God?”
I sensed, way back then, that this question is silly and wrong. It is not for nothing that the great
monotheist religions such as Judaism and Islam forbid any image of God… You shall not make for yourself an idol,
whether in the form of anything that is in the heaven above… The danger is that any image of God ends
up being some projection of ourselves.
Inevitably we fashion God in our image – or as some representation from
our childhood, an indulgent father, or as tyrannical or unpredictable or
judgemental, a God who needs to be cajoled, propitiated, even flattered.
In
contemplative prayer we teach that the aim is certainly not to form any
representation of God in our minds, however uplifting – just as it is not to be
looking for thoughts and inspirations, oracles, visions or revelations. I understand how stern or austere, to say
nothing of surprising, this sounds to many.
In the Christian scriptures we learn from St Paul that it is Jesus who
is the icon of the invisible God [Col
1:15; Rom 8:29; II Cor 4:4]. Jesus himself
teaches that the central question is the one he posed: Who do
you say I am? [Luke 9:18-20] The
consequence of imagining God is either that God becomes an enemy or adversary
of some kind, in any case a problem – or that we wind up trying to co-opt God
to our own needs and purposes, even to our opinions and prejudices. Either way, this God is an idol and what we
are practising is idolatry.
Thomas
Merton was sure that contemplative life and prayer in the end can’t be
taught. It is learned by doing it, by
experience. Testing reactions and
feelings, seeking experiences, is not contemplative prayer. Contemplative prayer begins as we are as
still and inwardly silent as is humanly possible, following simple disciplines
of posture and time and mantra – and as we inwardly consent to the presence of
God. We do not awaken God, says Merton,
God awakens us. Part of the experience
may well be the demolition of idols, of inherited or manufactured images of God
– including any need to make use of God to accomplish things we consider
important, or to drum up miracles. Unknowing
is how the wonderful anonymous English writer described it back in the late
Middle Ages – The Cloud of
Unknowing. To quote:
Thought
cannot comprehend God. And so, I prefer
to abandon all I can know, choosing rather to love him whom I cannot know. Though we cannot know him we can love him. By love he may be touched and embraced, never
by thought. Of course, we do well at times
to ponder God’s majesty or kindness for the insight these meditations may
bring. But in the real contemplative
work you must set all this aside and cover it over with a cloud of forgetting. Then let your loving desire, gracious and
devout, set bravely and joyfully beyond it and reach out to pierce the darkness
above. Yes, beat upon that thick cloud
of unknowing with the dart of your loving desire and do not cease come what
may.
[Cloud of Unknowing, ch.6, ed. William
Johnston].
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