Squirrels, Acorns, and Oaks

Love never ends.
But as for prophecies, they will come to an end;
As for languages, they will cease;
As for knowledge, it will come to an end.
For we know in part, and we prophesy in part,
But when the perfect comes, the partial will come to an end.
When I was a child, I spoke like a child,
I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child.
When I became a man, I put aside childish things.
For, now, we see indistinctly, as in a mirror, but then face to face.
Now I know in part, but then I will know fully, as I am fully known.
-- 1 Corinthians 13:8-12

I agree with atheists on one thing. I don’t believe in the god they don’t believe in either. The typical non-theist troll over on One Cosmos has what might be described as a “Sunday School” conception of the Divine, but, to be fair, that is also the concept of many who sit in churches three times a week. Neither the atheist nor the average fundamentalist appears able to recognize a simile, a metaphor or a semaphore when it eats their lunch.

Give the religious leaders of the Jesus’ time this much credit: they knew no one could look upon God, i.e., comprehend Him and live. To understand God was death to fallen man. To think that Jesus could actually be the Son of God in the fullest sense, that He had invaded humanity, was, and is, shocking. As a Muslim once said to me, with astonished, if hopeful indignation, “How can a man be the Great God?” Just because we have gotten used to the idea of the Incarnation doesn’t mean it is not still a scandalous terror.

We have probably all heard, if we haven’t thought or said something along the lines of: “When I get to heaven, I’m going to have a long talk with the Lord. I’ve got some questions about how He did things down here, and why things happened this way.” You know, at the Big Wrap Party, we catch the Director passing by, offer Him a cocktail (non-alcoholic, of course), then pull Him aside to ask why He shot a certain scene the way He did.

In order to understand God at all, we have to think of Him symbolically, so it is easy and natural that we would sometimes fall into our own meaning traps, get entangled in the very word nets we are using to draw up the comprehensible from the dark depths.

Most of us aren’t poets.

All I really meant to quote today was that last line: Now I know in part; but then I shall know, as I am also fully known.

And might I add: What a long, strange trip it’s been.

A hound knows its way home, no matter where or how far it runs because it has something like an internal compass to lead it back to where it belongs. The reason I get lost on the surface of this planet is because the pull of my internal compass is not to some earthly abode but to a heavenly one. It is unerring. You can put me down anywhere on the globe, or anywhere in the cosmos, for that matter, and I will get home.

When I get home, I will not be as the seed that I am today -- the part you put down -- any more than a seven-foot green corn stalk is the little yellow kernel that was planted, or a sixty-foot oak is the acorn a long-gone squirrel carried, hid, and forgot. I will know then, as I am known now. I will see, not reflections and shadows, but face to face.

There will be no explanations for there will be no questions.