5. Contemplation: Power and Surrender

Featuring music by Daniel Couper: http://www.danielcoupermusic.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:04

Hello and welcome to the Questing Soul Podcast, where friends come together to explore how we can journey deeper into the divine life. I'm Independent Christian Church, Pastor Benjamin Lee, and I'm joined by my good friend, theological enthusiast and fellow wayfarer Hannah E. Tiger. Whether you're searching or finding, deconstructing or reconstructing, wandering or wondering, we invite you to join us on this essential quest for a life that is good, beautiful, and true. Today's episode is brought to you by an ancient Christian hymn, a Swiss theologian, and a 14th-century Persian man who will all help us contemplate the playful and vulnerable nature of God's loving posture towards us.

SPEAKER_00 0:58

Hello and welcome! Friends and neighbors from near and far. Yon, hither and yon! Hither and yon! What?

SPEAKER_03 1:13

Nothing go keep going.

SPEAKER_01 1:15

You don't like this intro.

SPEAKER_03 1:17

I love it.

SPEAKER_01 1:18

I hear the judgment.

SPEAKER_03 1:21

It's the hither and yawn. I couldn't keep.

SPEAKER_01 1:25

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 1:26

What is yawn? Yonder. What's hither?

SPEAKER_02 1:28

Oh, it's short for yawner.

SPEAKER_01 1:30

Come hither.

SPEAKER_02 1:31

Hither.

SPEAKER_01 1:31

Near. I'm guessing. I'm a hundred percent guessing. Adam Farmer used to give me such a hard time because he didn't realize that the difference between my emphatic declarations and my wild speculation sounds the same. And in my head, I'm like, oh, I'm wildly speculating. But my wild, speculative voice sounds exactly like my emphatic. Trust me, I know what I'm talking about. There's some things I do.

SPEAKER_02 2:06

Very confusing for people, then.

SPEAKER_01 2:08

Yeah. So anyway, Heather and Jan. I am wildly speculating that Heather, come like because we say come hither.

SPEAKER_02 2:15

Yeah. Come near. Yeah. Come near. Once you explain it.

SPEAKER_01 2:18

And Yan, I'm I'm guessing it sounds like Yonder. So I'm going with that.

SPEAKER_03 2:26

Can we please keep that intro? Yeah. Okay. You with your old timey radio voice. No. Oh man. So how was your week?

SPEAKER_02 2:41

Uh can I just come can I just complain a little bit for a moment about AI?

SPEAKER_01 2:47

About I?

SPEAKER_02 2:48

AI. I had this experience this week. I was looking for poems about with the topic of welcoming. And I, because we have a poetry class at Hopwood, um that was gonna be the topic was welcoming others. And so I'm also at the same time preparing for a trip to Istanbul. And so I've been like learning about Sufi mysticism and all this stuff. And so the two kind of converged this week because I was trying to find poems about welcoming, and there are Sufi poets who talk about um the idea of welcoming others, and there's this uh I don't know, this whole movement within like supposedly within Sufi poetry about welcoming others, and so I was looking for it, and so I kept Googling things because I was like, I need examples of I need like some poetry so to use for class. Yeah. And AI kept making up, I would, I would Google something, like I would say, like uh poems that have this idea of others being God's guest, like welcoming others as God's guest. It was literally making up poetry and giving me examples, and then I would be like, Well, where did that come from? That's perfect, it would fit perfectly what I needed. I'd be like, Where'd that come from? So I would Google it, that phrase, because I was like, Where is this? It's gotta be on the internet somewhere because AI did it. And uh no, it was just making it up. And do you know how do you know how we found out? Because Dave, I was like complaining about it, and Dave was like, Well, let me put it into Claude. So he put he uses a different AI thing. Right. He's much more adept with AI than I am. So he puts it in, the phrase in and says, Where does this come from? I got it from Gemini. And Claude said, Oh yeah, that's an AI hallucination.

SPEAKER_01 4:45

Wait, Claude said that?

SPEAKER_03 4:47

Claude.

SPEAKER_01 4:47

He said that about Gemini.

SPEAKER_03 4:49

I know. Can you believe it? What a jerk. They're beefing.

unknown 4:54

What a jerk.

SPEAKER_03 4:56

Claude and Gemini are beefing. Pick up beef.

SPEAKER_00 4:59

Why are you talking? Why are you talking to Gemini? You're talking that's what I want to know. That would be hilarious if Dave said, well, first, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 5:11

But it was like, yeah, anyway, we're gonna say something else.

SPEAKER_01 5:14

No, no, no. Just the fact that Claude called it.

SPEAKER_02 5:16

I know. I was like a hallucination. I was like, this is insane. This is insanity. Like I was also going a little crazy because I'd been sick all week and hadn't seen people or interacted with the real world in any way. But I was literally, I was Googling like Anatolian, Anatolian folk folk poetry, because apparently that's maybe what this chunk of text that it showed me came from. And then, yeah. So, but the ant the thing that told me that it was an AI hallucination was another AI platform.

SPEAKER_01 5:53

So, how do I know? How do you know? What if he's hallucinating?

SPEAKER_02 5:56

I know. Uh anyway. But you find some poems. I was irrationally mad about it. I did find some poems.

SPEAKER_01 6:04

It was that poet Hafiz, right?

SPEAKER_02 6:06

Yeah, yeah. I can't believe that I went almost 42 years without having met this person. Like he's like, if it's like if I had a soul sister, but my soul sister 14th century Persian man.

SPEAKER_00 6:28

Oh my goodness, I can't believe Persian man is my soul sister. Are you gonna sing that song, hey soul sister?

SPEAKER_02 6:38

No, I will not subject you to that.

SPEAKER_01 6:41

He but you mentioned when we were reading this poem this morning, you mentioned how playful he is. So I'm sure he would Oh my goodness. He would probably love that.

SPEAKER_03 6:51

He would love this podcast. Yeah, and he would love you calling him soul sister. I have known him for approximately four days, and I know because he's my soul sister.

SPEAKER_02 7:02

No, but we you know, we talk about like the silliness of these kinds of conversations and and this the silliness of trying to experience and talk about God, right? And his poetry is very, very playful.

SPEAKER_04 7:26

You don't gotta be someone, just gotta be yourself. Would you hurry up and slowly?

SPEAKER_02 7:34

Hafiz gives us these like very concrete images to help us, and they're silly, right? Like, I think I mentioned he has a poem where he's talking to someone and saying, We're the same, like we're from the same God, right? And he says, We at some point in our lives were in the beloved's womb playing footsie. Like we you know, we've been friends forever. I mean, that's basically how it's like you and I have been friends for a very, very long time. And it's like that image is so weird and vivid, but you like, but it gets at such like a deeper, like a deeper truth that like you could say you could say that in a variety of ways, like we come from the same God, or we are you and I are one, right?

SPEAKER_01 8:23

But like starting off with something so beautiful and intimate and delicate. What did you say?

SPEAKER_02 8:29

Or in the In the beloved's womb.

SPEAKER_01 8:30

In the beloved's womb.

SPEAKER_02 8:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:32

And then the next line, playing FTSies.

SPEAKER_02 8:35

Playing FTSY. There's one. Oh my okay. Uh I'll stop going on and on about hubies. But it's it's one of those mysterious things where I don't know if this happens to you, but you come in contact with writers or thinkers or theologians or even just people in your life when at the moment that you need them.

SPEAKER_01 8:58

Yeah. Does that make sense? Have you heard of the little I think it's a Buddhist proverb. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 9:04

No, I haven't heard of it.

SPEAKER_01 9:05

When the disciple is ready, the master will appear. Oh. Yeah. And I think that about books too.

SPEAKER_02 9:11

Oh, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 9:12

Yeah, it's just a fun little fun little proverb. When the disciple is ready, the master will appear.

SPEAKER_03 9:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:19

We just have seasons in our life where we're more disposed for certain teachers. And I think poems and books serve that way too. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 9:29

Yeah. Well, I feel like I I've gotten to the point in my life where I'm just I'm tired of fear. I'm tired of being afraid. I'm ti I'm just tired of it. I don't know. Like I that's a probably a weird, I don't know. It's probably weird, but I just want to stop making decisions out of fear. I just want to take it out of the equation. Yeah. And how do I do that? And Hafiz is like, uh, yeah, you don't need it. Let's jump in. Yeah. Of the half a book I've read. If I could boil it down to two words, it would just be like, yeah, just jump in. So this is the poem that made me realize this is a person I've been looking for. This is called The Seed Cracked Open. It used to be that when I would wake in the morning, I could with confidence say, What am I going to do? That was before the seed cracked open. Now Hafiz is certain. There are two of us housed in this body, doing the shopping together in the market and tickling each other while fixing the evening's food. Now when I awake, all the internal instruments play the same music. God, what love mischief can we do for the world today. It's great. That image of like you and God are tickling each other while you make dinner. I just couldn't, I I died. There's just like a there's a a closeness with God that he has that I'm like, I want that. Like it's so um, it's so like intimate to who he is. Yeah. Um but also it's like he's like you can't describe God as everywhere, God is everything. You know, like you can't, um, but he's also deeply intimate to him and yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:47

And accessible, like to tickle someone.

SPEAKER_02 11:50

So accessible.

SPEAKER_01 11:51

You you have to have a level of trust.

SPEAKER_02 11:55

You can't just be tickling strangers.

SPEAKER_00 11:57

Yeah, you definitely can't be ticking strangers, or maybe even acquaintances. Yeah, you definitely can't. And there's plenty of friends you don't tickle. But the people you do tickle.

SPEAKER_03 12:16

Oh my goodness.

SPEAKER_01 12:17

You've got a good relationship with them. Yeah, yeah. There's no way you can tickle somebody twice. There's no way you can tickle somebody for the second time and not love them. Yeah, it's true. You can you can get away with tickling somebody one time.

SPEAKER_00 12:36

You can tickle anybody one time.

SPEAKER_03 12:42

I'm gonna put that on a on a pillow or brighter than our questing soul merch.

unknown 12:48

On the back.

SPEAKER_03 12:50

Tickle anybody once, or what did she say?

SPEAKER_02 12:54

I don't know if that's quite our quote, but yeah. Anyway. So all of that to say, I have found him at the probably the exact moment I needed to, but I'm also so sad that somehow I lived 42 years without knowing that.

SPEAKER_03 13:11

You weren't ready. That's true. You weren't ready.

SPEAKER_02 13:14

The disciple wasn't ready for the master.

SPEAKER_03 13:16

Or what was it? It wouldn't have hit. It wouldn't hit the same way. Yeah. You'd be like, he's stupid.

unknown 13:21

I don't think so.

SPEAKER_03 13:22

Tickling, come on. Footsies.

SPEAKER_02 13:25

The word tickling has no room in a poem. Has no right to be in a poem. Oh poems are serious.

SPEAKER_01 13:32

Yeah. So we've been talking about contemplation. Yeah. And there's lots to talk about with it.

SPEAKER_02 13:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:40

I also think that it's not as inaccessible as the word sometimes feels to a lot of people. But anyway, sure. Is there anything about our last conversation? Have you thought more about it? Have you thought more about your particular narrative with regards to how it can be a connection to a posture of contemplation? Yeah. I was wondering how you contemplated your own contemplation.

SPEAKER_02 14:06

Yeah. Well, I mean, I think I was particularly interested, which we didn't get into a larger conversation about this, but I hope that we do at some point about control and that the giving up of control or even giving up of the illusion of control is maybe a better way to say it, is like something that both happens in these times that are really hard, um, but also then are pretty important for contemplation. Yeah. Um, and so I I'm excited to talk more about that, but about the control dynamic, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:39

Yeah, because I was well these poems actually and the things that we've already talked about, I think that's related.

SPEAKER_02 14:45

I think Connect that dot for me.

SPEAKER_01 14:49

Cause I don't Well, part of the state of fear is an awareness that we're not in control of something, but I think we're wanting to be.

SPEAKER_02 14:58

We want to be.

SPEAKER_01 14:59

We want to be.

SPEAKER_02 15:00

And yeah, maybe fear is a recognition that we're not in control.

SPEAKER_01 15:05

Right.

SPEAKER_02 15:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:07

And we and we have no agency.

SPEAKER_02 15:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:10

I think. There's also an element of how love and play have no room for fear. Love drives out fear, but also control has no room in either of those as well. So anyway, I think we're we're talking about a constellation of things here. But when we're talking about I think you're right, this we need to unpack a little bit more of this notion of control and but it it's very much, I think, related to fear and love and play.

SPEAKER_02 15:41

You know, I was talking about my experience of uh assumptions of God being kind of stripped away in like a hard experience. And the more I thought about it, I thought actually there was a larger lesson, I think, or I don't know if lesson's the word, but there was a larger kind of assumption that I think was kind of um cracked open for me in that experience that I think is related to the control conversation, which was that I always I really ascribe to this very common, I think it's it's very common assumption that everything happens for a reason, right? It's a way of of saying, okay, I can't find the sense in what's happening right now, but I have to trust that there's like some sense to this, right? There's some there has to be some reason why this terrible thing is happening. I I think in that experience of that we were talking about last week with finding out that I had epilepsy, and I think I I stopped thinking that way.

SPEAKER_06 16:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 16:53

Um, and it gave me room to kind of take on a new idea kind of about uh about that kind of thing. But I So here's an interesting question.

SPEAKER_01 17:02

Yeah. Is I mean, I don't know if it's an interesting question.

SPEAKER_03 17:06

It's interesting to best.

SPEAKER_01 17:08

I'm interested in asking this question, is what I meant to say. Yes. Try not to be so presumptuous.

SPEAKER_05 17:14

I'll allow it.

SPEAKER_01 17:15

But it's interesting to me, you know, you've got this diagnosis, which would be kind of a heavy, uh, a heavy thing to hold. And I think the reason why people go to oh, everything has happens for a reason helps you to not be afraid.

SPEAKER_05 17:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:36

Right. Because you're like, sure. Oh, this thing's happened. But if I believe that God made this happen, then God made this happen for a reason.

SPEAKER_07 17:45

Right.

SPEAKER_01 17:45

And so that gives me something to look forward to. And I it helps me to look past this condition.

SPEAKER_07 17:51

Right.

SPEAKER_01 17:51

Right.

SPEAKER_07 17:52

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 17:53

But you just said, A, I'm not sure if everything happens for a reason. Well, I'm not sure that God inflicts people with epilepsy. Yeah. Is really what's under what we have we have to be honest with what we're talking about here. You know, even the language is really tricky of like, well, God allowed it. Like that's even tricky language as well. Yeah. But definitely everything happens for a reason. Oh, did God kill that person? You know. But anyway, there's there's lots of scenarios where we have to call that into question. All that to say why is it that it got cracked open that that might not be the right way to think about God in situations? And how how why was that liberating you letting go of that assumption? Because it sounds like I I hear in you you let go of that.

SPEAKER_02 18:50

Yeah, oh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:51

How did you let go of it? I don't know. You don't know?

SPEAKER_02 18:54

No, no, no, no. I think I think uh yeah, I had to kind of reckon with this idea of like, okay, so why did this happen to me, right? And so when that experience happened first happened, I was like asking that question over and over and over again. And it was just I don't know, there's verses in the Bible where people say, I think they people say to Jesus, like, who sinned this man or his father when someone has like a disability of some kind? And he says, No, it's for the glory of of God. And I I always was very confused about what that meant. Um I don't know if I can actually draw the different steps of how it happened, but I kind of came to this understanding of like, I don't know that everything happens for a reason, but I think God redeems everything. Yeah. Um, or can redeem everything if we if of our free will we allow it, right? I think we have a very active role in that. God doesn't just automatically redeem everything. I don't know. But I that was the connection to me. I don't know if that if that makes sense. I don't quite know how to draw all the linear steps, but right.

SPEAKER_01 20:11

But it was slowly what was happening was you're you were just shifting how you processed and understood it.

SPEAKER_02 20:19

Yeah, yeah, because I came out of that experience feeling very much like it was a redemptive experience. Yeah. And so I think that's probably for me a fuller way to talk about that experience and what came out of that experience. Because but I was thinking about it later after we recorded the last one because I it is very connected to that control.

SPEAKER_07 20:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 20:40

Um, because you we want to say, well, everything must happen for a reason. Somebody must be in control of what's happening right now, right? Like we're not just like off the rails. We're not just hurling through space. Right. You know, anyway. So I don't know. That's our doom. Yeah, yeah. So I was thinking, I guess that was the connection I was making with with the conversation we were having about what does it look like to give up that illusion of of control.

SPEAKER_01 21:08

Yeah. So this is interesting. I wish I had a better way to transition, but this is interesting. I think here's why. Here's why.

SPEAKER_02 21:17

Yeah, yeah. Tell me, tell me, tell me. I would love for you to explain why this is interesting.

SPEAKER_01 21:22

Why trauma and pain and suffering is interesting. Um so what's interesting about it is and we talked about this last episode, which to kind of contextualize this a little bit broader in our conversation. Um, we're saying that contemplation is probably at the heart of Christian spirituality.

SPEAKER_07 21:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:43

Not what we actively do, not what we think, but uh this ground of being. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 21:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:51

So these moments that we mentioned in the last episode, and specifically this one, is they help us realize that there's something. About being in control that's actually not liberated.

SPEAKER_02 22:03

Yeah, it's hindering us.

SPEAKER_01 22:05

It's hindering us, which is why.

SPEAKER_02 22:06

In the spiritual life, right?

SPEAKER_01 22:07

It's a little bit of a paradox. How is it that coming to the realization that we are not in control, how is that liberating? Isn't that a paradox? I think it is.

SPEAKER_02 22:16

It is. I mean, I think so.

SPEAKER_01 22:18

That means somebody else is in control. Well, yes and no. It just means that there are things that we can't control. And thinking that we can, and maybe that's the illusion of thinking that we can be in more control than we are is actually what hinders us.

SPEAKER_07 22:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:37

And uh, but it seems like what you pointed out, there's two sides of this coin. It's not just us finding a way to be in a posture of openness towards God and not not trying to control ourselves or trying to control God, but just simply being before God. But we're also on the other side of that equation is we're we're trying to bring ourselves before a God who's coming to us in the same way. Does that make sense? And so that's why I think if that's what contemplation is, this mutual space of longing, a mutual space of openness and trust, that it's not just us that's being vulnerable, but it's also God.

SPEAKER_07 23:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:18

That's contemplation. It's not just a one-sided thing. And that's why sometimes these moments in life that are very jarring, though God didn't cause it, why they can be so beautiful is they become unique openings to that awareness. I've been doing another deep dive into the Christ hymn. Are you familiar with the Christ Hymn?

SPEAKER_02 23:53

Is that the one about he did not?

SPEAKER_01 23:56

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 23:56

Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_01 23:57

No, no, no.

SPEAKER_02 23:58

I just thought that I was like three words in, you're like, that's it.

SPEAKER_01 24:01

That's it. Yep, yeah, you got it. So we'll so this is from Paul's letter to the Philippians, and a lot of commentators are pretty sure that there was this poem and this hymn that the early church had, and he's incorporating this poem slash hymn into his letter, and it's Philippians 2 5 through 11, basically. So we're gonna read it. I've been thinking about this a lot for the past month. I've been reading a couple books uh just on this, and it's just to set up the the reading of it. What if what you're about to read, what if it's the lens through which A, we read all of Paul, B, we we just understand this is who God is. I think a lot of what Christians are trying to deconstruct is an institutional power, a religion that is not reflective of Christ, but some uh but but church institutions who are leveraging spirituality and theology as a way to control.

SPEAKER_02 25:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:10

I mean, so we're we're talking about this notion of power, which is, I mean, this is also tan tangentially related to contemplation, uh, but you're very much right. Like this posture, this individual posture before God that we're calling contemplation is connected to uh notions of control and power. And anyway, I this is there's a couple of dots that I think can be connected here. Um but yeah, one of the things that we're trying to deconstruct is coercion, manipulation, power, dominance, control. And something doesn't seem quite right with a religion where God has that posture towards us and demanding obedience, demanding and controlling. Um but there's a part of us that kind of we're a little bit schizophrenic because there's a part of us that wants that. Yeah, we want God to be dominating and controlling and powerful until we receive it from somebody else, and we're like, oh, that's not quite so good.

SPEAKER_06 26:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:17

So we can't have it both ways. Yeah. So what does religion look like? What does Christianity look like when you give up God is in control? And I want to argue the image from the beginning as a God who creates and is generative, but a God who's not in control. Um and so what if we were to read this Christ hymn, read this section of scripture as like, oh, this is paradigmatic of who God is?

SPEAKER_02 26:43

Yeah. Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not re regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness, and being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore, God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that the name at the name of Jesus every knee should bend in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.

SPEAKER_01 27:39

It's like a kaleidoscopic meaning to me. So the cliff notes of what a lot of scholars are arguing, this isn't just Ben's take. People like N. T. Wright, which is a name you've probably heard of, famous New Testament guy who kind of makes New Testament theology accessible. Top notch, Stephen Fowl, another great guy, New Testament scholar, Michael Gorman, uh, wrote a book, Inhabiting the Cruciform God. These are all really good New Testament scholars. They're making this argument that the Christ hymn, which you just read, is like this is the image of God. And part of the image that we often we assume is humanity messed everything up. And now you're bad, humanity's bad, and you're just bad, bad, bad. Uh Romans Road.

SPEAKER_03 28:30

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:30

And uh, and so now God has to fix it.

SPEAKER_03 28:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:33

And then we can go deep into all how many horrible theologies there are, but this hymn, this Christ hymn, really gives us a positive direction to go. So what they're saying is that oh, the image of Jesus on the cross, it's not God fixing something. The hour of Christ's glory is the cross. And so what is glory? Glory is the eminence of God, the weightiness of God. So what we see in the cross is God's own nature being revealed in uh a unique way. And what is God's nature? God's nature, it was it say at the very beginning of the hymn, it says, did not consider equality with God as what?

SPEAKER_02 29:23

Something to be exploited.

SPEAKER_01 29:25

Another word for that in in the Greek is grasped. So, like, first of all, how uh that's control, this notion of con so the nature of God, and we can also say the nature of the universe, that the power of all life is God's nature. And so what is that? What does it look like to um to participate in God's nature? If you're going to participate in God's nature, the nature of God is not to grasp after power. What does it say in the text? It says, but he he does not consider power and equality with God as something to be grasped, but what does he do? He empties himself.

SPEAKER_02 30:05

Yeah, emptied himself.

SPEAKER_01 30:06

And what and and so part of the argument of what's going on in the Christ Him is what is Christ being obedient to? He's being, as a human being, he's being obedient to the fundamental nature of who God is.

SPEAKER_05 30:20

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_01 30:21

What is the fundamental nature of who God is? To empty, to not consider equality with God or hierarchy. Uh God does not consider hierarchy as something to be maintained. He empties himself. What does he become? First of all, he he becomes a human, but he continues to empty himself and becomes a slave. In other words, it's God through Jesus uniting himself with humanity through this act of humbling, through this act of emptying, God saying, I want to give you all of my nature, all of my life, but I don't want to force it. I don't want to coerce you into this love. Yeah. It's just an invitation. So how are we saved? And so a lot, there's a lot of theologians now are using this language of participation. You you're saved by participating in this image. What does he say at the very beginning? Let the same mind be in you as in the same that is in Christ, right? So we are called to participate in this image of self-offering. But if we believe that God is eternal, as we've been talking about quite a bit, uh then if I place myself within this divine economy, then I have the liberty to empty myself endlessly. Right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 31:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:44

But then the other beauty of this is that Jesus emptied himself but doesn't expect anything out in return. It's like, here's all of my love. I am going to comp I'm going to find complete solidarity in every square inch of humanity. And I'm going to give it, I'm going to, I'm going to find radical solidarity with you out of pure love. And I'm going to empty all of myself into you and into creation, into nature. And I'm not going to expect anything in return. But if you if you want to participate in this action, get on in here. Then but what but to do it, if you if you want to participate in the ground of all being, in E equals MC square, the energy, right? The energy that is running the universe. If you want some of that, then God doesn't need you to be obedient to God because of the hierarchy. He's inviting the obedience to God's nature, which is self-emptying. Does that make sense? Yeah. And so that's why why is Jesus worthy for every need to bow? It's because he's bowed. You can't get any lower than Jesus, than what Jesus did. It's worthy to be in this mutual self-offering life. Who who else is worthy to give our power to than the person who doesn't grasp after power? That's you know I mean, honestly. That's what it's trying to get at. It's a paradox to say be obedient, because it's like be obedient to the person who doesn't want to control you.

SPEAKER_02 33:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:26

That's the crisis.

SPEAKER_02 33:27

I feel like we experience that like just in life too. The people that we hold up as examples are the yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:33

Right. And like what is the perfect relationship in friends, friendships and in uh any kind of relationship, whether it's romantic, whether it's friendship, whether it's a mentor or disciple, it's the relationship so these mutual self-offering. We know instinctively that that's beautiful and good. Yeah. And then like at the heart of the gospel, that's what it's trying to say. But then we people come up with this crazy theology that's about power and dominance and control, right? God's posture towards us is contemplative, meaning God is gazing at us with a long, loving look, and contemplation is inviting us to look back at God with that same posture. And that's that is exactly why contemplation is needed in our everyday life, because it's it's training us to be more open to love and be more open to not controlling. Contemplation assumes that we are contemplating a God that doesn't want to coerce us, does not want to control us.

SPEAKER_07 34:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 34:36

And so this image of us letting go of power, I think it's crucial to highlight. We're letting go of control to be in front of a God who has let go of control in order to be in that kind of mutually self-offering relationship. And contemplation just kind of helps us become aware that that's really what life with each other is about and our life with God is about.

SPEAKER_02 35:03

And what God, yeah. Well, thinking about contemplation is like gazing upon, right? Yeah. Uh if we're gonna gaze upon God, we need to gaze upon the a true God. Yes, exactly. It's very important. We're not gazing upon a lot of people. Better look at me. Yeah, you can contemplate a God who's really like, you know. That would be bad. Yeah. I think there's um in Iliadelio, there's a really beautiful section of the book where she talks about crucified love. She quotes Hans Erz von Balthazar. Yep. But I'm gonna read you this quote from him. Is that okay? Yeah. He says, It is God's going forth into the danger and the nothingness of the creation, so it's incarnation, right? That reveals God's heart to be at its origin vulnerable. In the humility of this vulnerability lies God's condescension, his humility, and thus his fundamental readiness to go to the very end of love on the cross. And then she goes on to very much, she, you know, she says the power of divine love, you know, the power of divine love is shown in the powerlessness of the cross. She says only an almighty God, all only an almighty love can give itself wholly to the other and be a helpless love. And so that in that kind of self-emptying, it's only because of his power that he can self-empty, right? That it the self-emptying is uh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 36:33

That we have to redefine our definition of power. Yeah. And that power is emptying.

SPEAKER_02 36:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 36:39

And to think that the power is not in the ways in which we try to influence, sometimes that's good, but no, the real power and the invitation is like, where can you empty? When we think about how exhausting emptying can be, yeah, that can be like revitalized if we think, oh, I'm I'm pouring something divine in this person. And I'm not in control of what they do with it.

SPEAKER_02 37:10

That's and she says, uh Ilia Delio says, this paradoxical withdrawal of power makes new being possible. That's exactly what you're saying.

SPEAKER_01 37:19

Makes new being possible.

SPEAKER_02 37:20

New being possible. As divine love empties itself into the other, it empowers the other by withdrawing its own power. That's exactly what you're what you're saying. Um, and allowing them to flourish. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway. So well, so could I tell you the connection? Uh so Perfect. I think in the in the instance of the, you know, the story we were talking about with dealing with epilepsy and all the lessons, you know. I think like what I came to was it actually doesn't matter whether or not things happen for a reason. I don't feel like that's the role that I need God to play.

SPEAKER_01 38:03

Like I felt very question that needs answered.

SPEAKER_02 38:06

Yeah, yeah. I felt very much like, no, well the beauty of of Christ, the beauty of God, is that He's with us. Like He's in it. And so I love that quote from Ilya Dillo talking about connecting incarnation also with with the cross. Um so incarnation in itself was also a self-emptying. Yeah. Um, that the two are very much connected. Absolutely. And so the idea of God um being with us in bodily form, living our experience, that that that that is a that understanding helps us to be able to understand how our experiences can be redeemed. Does that make sense? It does. It gives us kind of a roadmap, yeah. Talking about maps, to to understand this very this concept that would be very hard is very hard to understand, I think if you've never experienced it, of like a terrible situation being redeemed. Right.

SPEAKER_01 39:23

So I think we've tied everything up in a nice little bow. We've I think we've we have we've captured God in uh we've nailed God now.

SPEAKER_03 39:36

Yeah, just put him in a little box.

SPEAKER_01 39:40

So I thought, so maybe next episode, one of the things you said early on is you wanted to see how conversations of Christian spirituality, how they connect with your life. It can't just be about heady stuff, it can't just be about knowledge.

SPEAKER_07 39:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 39:57

And so I think we're now at a point where it would be healthy to talk about well, what are some of the practical ways in which one might enter into this posture of contemplation? Because it's not easy, it's not intuitive, it sounds really like you have to be some bald monk on top of a mountain in Tibet.

SPEAKER_02 40:19

From Kentucky.

SPEAKER_01 40:21

Or yeah, or a bald monk from Kentucky. Yeah, that's right.

SPEAKER_02 40:24

They're both bald.

SPEAKER_01 40:25

Uh I'm halfway there. Uh I'm bald, just not from Kentucky or Tibet. Tibet. I'm in the mountains, but I digress.

SPEAKER_03 40:36

But anyway.

SPEAKER_01 40:37

Um, but yeah, but just talking practically about what are some practical ways of doing it, but it's important to have, I mean, we've just had two huge conversations about contemplation. And and part of that is like, well, what are the reasons why we're doing this? Are we trying to fix something? There's plenty of books that say here here's a how-to uh do it, but like it's more important to understand our own motives for contemplating. We're not we're not doing it out of shame.

SPEAKER_07 41:10

Right.

SPEAKER_01 41:10

Yeah and that would also mean we have to have a right understanding or at least a decent comprehension of who God is. Ultimately, as it says in first John, God is love, right? Yeah. Um, and so if we're going to do the practical and draw on the mystics for guidance into that, I think some of these conversations might be an important necessary preface, right?

SPEAKER_02 41:33

I sure hope so. We've been talking about it.

SPEAKER_00 41:40

I hope it was somewhat necessary. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 41:42

No, I mean, I think it's it's helpful to go into like a concept like this with the understanding of some of the conditions of it, right? How do we need to come into it or how do we get into it in a way that where we're going to have the fullest experience of God that we can? Yeah. Um and have an experience. Right, exactly. And have but have what posture can we put ourselves into coming into something like this that will help us experience God in a fuller way.

SPEAKER_01 42:12

And I think the language of posture is perfect because one of the things we're talking about with the Christ Him is what is God's posture towards us. Right. And if God's posture towards us, especially in the Christ Him, it's ultimate vulnerability, it's emptying, it's love. And if that's what the divine life is, then it kind of makes sense that then this posture of contemplation is ultimately we're we're doing nothing. We are placing ourselves before God in that same posture, which can be challenging. How how do I how do I try to gaze at God in the way that God gazes at me? And this this is why some of these topics of trauma, of heartache, of hitting rock bottom are kind of important because it's usually we don't naturally drift towards vulnerability.

SPEAKER_02 43:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 43:05

We naturally look at ways in which we can leverage power to stay away from vulnerability.

SPEAKER_02 43:10

Stay away from it, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 43:11

And these moments of heartache and trauma, even though God doesn't put them upon us, they shake us in such a way where we are very keenly aware of our own vulnerability.

SPEAKER_07 43:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 43:24

And it's no coincidence why that we're able to kind of glimpse at the realness of God and reality, is because we're actually in a posture fully aware of our vulnerability and looking at God, who's also looking at us.

SPEAKER_02 43:40

And it's where we we tickle God.

SPEAKER_08 43:43

I can't even say it.

unknown 43:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 43:46

And it's where it's where we tickle God while we make dinner. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 43:50

It's where God says, it's where God says, come on, come on in here.

SPEAKER_03 43:54

Come on, get in here.

SPEAKER_00 43:56

Get on get on in here.

SPEAKER_03 43:58

I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_00 43:58

Let the tickling commence. It's God saying, I don't want to just tickle you once.

SPEAKER_03 44:09

So anyway. And that's another episode of the Questing Soul Podcast.

SPEAKER_01 44:17

Thanks to Hannah for contemplating the mystics with us. Thanks to Daniel Silliman for all of the production. Thanks to Daniel Cooper for our awesome interstitial music and you dear listener.